


Ancient History

by orphan_account



Series: Frenzy [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Headcanon, olicity - Freeform, slighty alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:24:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3359165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This a continuation of the Felicity Smoak meets Heather Fox friendship, only shit gets serious.</p><p>Deals with H.I.V.E., a kidnapping, international travel, and Diggle working through his past. It features Felicity Smoak being a badass, dealing with Oliver Queen and their weird relationship (gonna dive into that and have lots of feels, because I'm a softie, damn it), and I wrote this along the lines that the whole Oliver dying deal didn't happen. That's what makes it AU, though they still had their sucky first date and Oliver being all "You have no choice about this relationship because...reasons." If Ray pops up in this one, it will only be a cameo. Promise.</p><p>I'm going to separate this one into chapters because the last one in the series was not and I deeply regret it, though I am too lazy to change it. (Story of my life).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Very Bad Feeling

The lab was silent.

The machines running samples whirred, of course, and the distant groan of the wind battering the building hummed around the space, but the sounds Felicity associated with the lab were missing. The spark of life, the balance that was Heather, was gone.

Felicity pushed the lab door open curiously at the silence that greeted her and looked around curiously. The counters were littered with the typical disgusting samples that made up Heather's work. Blood, hair, skin, and other evidence lined the tables in neat, perfectly organized rows. Heather was a contradiction in that way. She was untamable, slightly wild, random, a little bit strange, but always one hundred percent organized.

The evidence did not look disturbed, nor did the machines look as if they had been touched, but something had happened to make the space feel different. It took a minute of searching the room to finally notice the droplets of blood on the ground by the table in the center of the room.

Felicity paused, eyeing the blood in concern and fear, before she surged forward to take a closer look. She knelt, her purple dress flaring out around her knees, the tips of her black pumps inches away from the first droplet.

Felicity was not a forensic pathologist, but the last two years had taught her a thing or two about crime scenes, the evidence they generate, and just a little bit about blood splatter.

To her, it looked as if the blood had come from a minor injury, maybe a nosebleed. It wasn't arterial. If Heather had been victim to a nosebleed, it made sense that she had turned off the music and gone to the bathroom.

It didn't fit, though. The feeling of something not being right belonged to instincts she had carefully, methodically, and purposefully stolen from Oliver and Diggle. She knew in her gut that Heather was not in the room for a very bad reason.

She told herself to be smart, not to overreact. Not seeing a person didn't mean something bad had happened, but the feeling pressed against her, prickling her senses with alarm and the certainty that she should listen.

She stood slowly, her eyes lingering on the blood as she tried to calm herself down, and decided the first place to check for her friend was the bathroom. The first place a person went during a nosebleed was the bathroom. It was logical, and she loved logic.

She had been coming to the office for a little over a month so she knew her way around the long series of rooms and labs. The bathroom was past the main office and down a short hall.

She hurried as fast as she could without running, her purse, heels, and dress working together to create an overall swish to her passage. The office was mostly dark, only every other light illuminating the space. Long shadows stretched between the silent rooms, adding to her nervousness. She kept thinking someone was going to jump out of the shadows. It wasn't unusual for Heather to work so late, which was why Felicity had thought to surprise her with dinner - or at least try to drag her away from her work long enough for dinner. She had seen it without Heather's employees several times. It was the first time Felicity had walked into the office and had it feel so empty, however. It was eerie. It had the hairs on her neck standing on end and a gulp ready to be had in the back of her throat.

She knocked twice on the door to the bathroom, then tested the knob when there was no response. The lights were off, so she flicked them on, already knowing that Heather was not inside. Heather was slightly weird, but she was not the stand in the dark in the bathroom kind of weird. She was Felicity's kind of weird - the good kind of weird.

She had her phone out before she had really even processed the fact that she was moving. She did the first thing that made sense to her logical mind. She called Heather.

Heather's picture popped up on her screen. She waited as the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Finally:

"This is Heather Fox. I probably won't call you back, but do whatever."

There was a beep and Felicity started talking.

"Heather, it's Felicity...Smoak. You probably figured that out from my voice. Or maybe you didn't. I might sound like someone else on the phone. I can't imagine you know too many Felicitys, though. Or maybe you do. Why have we never talked about how many Felicitys you know? That seems like something we would talk about. I know only one Heather, in case you're wondering. That's you. Obviously... Sorry. I'm here at the office to take you to get really unhealthy Mexican food and you are not. I don't know if you already left to get dinner, or if you're dying in a back alley...I didn't mean for that last part to sound like a joke. I'm actually a little worried about it. If you are dying in a back alley, could you call me so I can come save you? I'd appreciate it...Although..."

"To record another message, push one..." the automated computer voice said then, cutting her off. It was strange, but, to Felicity, even the computer voice sounded exasperated at her ramble. Rude.

Felicity hung up with a sigh and looked at her other contacts. She had several options. She knew quite a few super-duper superheroes. Some of them she liked a little bit more than the others right now - mostly because 'others' tended to have his head so far up his own ass that he could gnaw on a lung if he wanted to - but they were all incredibly super.

She realized after a short pause that she didn't want a superhero. She wanted a friend. She didn't know if she was overreacting to the situation yet. She didn't know what to make of the silence or Heather's strange absence. There was no reason to be alarmed really, not over small droplets of blood on a tile floor at a time of night when she knows her friend is usually working.

Her hand tapped the screen uncertainly, then coasted over Diggle's contact photo. She put the phone on speaker as she walked out into the main office and sat down at the only computer.

"Hello?" Diggle asked, sounding irritated.

"Oh, God, was Sara sleeping?" Felicity asked.

"No, uh, well, yes," he said, the irritation fading to awkwardness.

Felicity decided that she didn't want to press the issue. It felt personal, and it was not a rabbit hole she was interested in falling down. Ever.

"Well, sorry, for whatever. I was just here at the lab my friend owns..."

"Heather, right? That's your friend's name?" Diggle asked.

Felicity was pleased he remembered. "Right. And I was going to get really nasty food with her before I had to be in the foundry and deal with Mr. McGrr, but she's not here."

"You guys had set up plans to meet?" he asked.

"No, not exactly. But if she's not going to be here, she usually texts me because we've gotten into the habit of hanging out for dinner every other weeknight, come to think of it."

"What's the real problem?" Diggle asked patiently.

"There was blood on the floor. It might be nothing, but something just feels...wrong," she said. "The door to the office was unlocked, which never happens when she's not here - she's really protective of her evidence and would never leave it so other people could just waltz in and tamper with it - her music was off, which I don't think she even turns it off when she leaves, and I just have a bad feeling."

"Have you tried hacking her phone to see where she is?"

"I just sat down at a computer here in Heather's office," Felicity replied. She bit her lip uncertainly, doubt bubbling to the surface. "I shouldn't have called you. I should have waited. I know. I'm sorry. It's just I got the bad feeling and I wanted..."

"It's fine," Diggle said. "I understand."

"Thanks."

She quickly hacked into Heather's service provider on the computer and found the GPS app. She turned it on and waited for it to tell her where her friend was. She hoped that it revealed the fact that she was at a restaurant or at home, safe and sound. She really, really, wanted her reaction to be stupid. She would put up with the embarrassment of overreacting if it meant everything was okay.

"It says that she's...in the alley behind the building," Felicity said with a frown.

"Does she smoke?" Diggle asked.

"No," she said. "I think she might park back there, though."

"I'll be there in...ten minutes," he said.

"You don't have to-" Felicity started to say.

"You have a bad feeling. I trust you, so that means there could potentially be a bad guy near you. Spend the time looking for her, and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Okay," Felicity agreed in relief. She was glad he was coming even if she felt foolish about it. She liked the compromise. She could sit at the computer and hack every single camera within a ten block radius. That was her forte. She would let Diggle be in his.

She wormed her way into the city's system. Her problem was that she didn't know what she was looking for or what weirdness she was trying to find. She was working blind. It was a needle and haystack situation, only she didn't know where the haystack was. It was frustrating.

She was in the middle of the search when her phone rang. She reached over expectantly and put it on speakerphone absently.

"I'm in the alley. There's a couple of cars back here, but I don't see anyone," Diggle said.

"She drives a black sedan," Felicity replied.

"I see it." There was a pause as Felicity listened to the sounds of his footsteps on the wet stone. "There's no one here."

"Is her phone...?"

There was another pause. "I don't see it."

"It's not on the seat?" Felicity asked.

"No..." Diggle said. "Hang on."

Felicity drummed her fingers against the desk impatiently. She pursed her lips and seriously considered joining him in the alley. He was there now, so he couldn't complain about her presence. At least she wouldn't be getting details secondhand. Somehow it made the situation feel worse. Five seconds stretched out to thirty, then to a minute. Grunts and something shifting joined the shuffling of Diggle's clothing. He was moving a whole lot more than simple walking suggested.

"Digg?" she asked.

"I'm...just...Yeah, I thought so."

"Care to share with the class?" Felicity asked.

"I found a phone," he said.

"How bad is it?" she asked, reading into his tone.

"It was in the dumpster, broken."

"That sounds pretty bad," she said, starting to bite on her thumbnail.

"I'm coming up. Which floor?"

She gave him directions and they hung up. She leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and looked at the computer anxiously. She felt let down. It happened sometimes when the technology did not give her what she wanted. Focusing on the lack of computer support was far better than focusing on the fact that her friend was potentially missing, kidnapped, or dead.

She definitely did not want to think about the last one.

She processed everything she knew about Heather, the scene she had witnessed in the lab, and tried to piece together an explanation from both. She pushed aside the thought that she was still overreacting to the situation and focused on the facts in front of her.

She knew that Heather had been working on a couple of top-secret projects. She wouldn't even tell her who they were for, not that Felicity minded. She had some top-secret secrets as well to keep, though they were far less legal.

It was entirely possible that one of the projects may have gotten her in trouble.

Felicity carefully erased her tracks from the computer and pushed away from the desk slowly. She went back into the lab and immediately walked over to the computer in the corner. She had avoided it out of respect for Heather's privacy, but privacy was overrated, particularly while in the middle of a dangerous situation. Secrets were deadly. She had been forced to learn that all too well.

Heather had the computer password protected. Felicity thought it was cute that her friend thought it could actually keep people out. She broke through it within seconds and waited for the ancient system to wake up and give her all the data she wanted, needed, and could take.

She was mid-wait when a hand appeared at her elbow. She jumped and started to whirl around, but Diggle's voice stopped her.

"It's me."

"What is it with you people and sneaking around?" she asked.

"We fight bad guys for a living," he said. "Sneaking seems like a good idea."

"Don't be cocky," she said.

"Here's the phone," he said, handing it to her.

The screen was broken. Other than the superficial damage, it looked to be mostly intact. She might be able to pull the data from it, though she would need the computers in the foundry for that task. She put the phone into her purse as Diggle focused his attention on the room. He squatted next to the blood and looked at the splatter with a professional eye.

"This doesn't look too serious," he told Felicity.

"Mhmm," she agreed, not trusting herself not to blurt all the theories rushing around her head if she tried to reply intelligently.

Heather's computer was not organized the way normal people would organize it. There were subfolders for subfolders and the important things were buried deep in the hard drive. A whole portion of the hard drive was encrypted. It was no wonder Heather wasn't worried about someone breaking into her files. The encryption was top of the line. Felicity chastised herself for ever doubting her friend's computer skills.

The encrypted files intrigued her the most. There was no way in hell she was getting through them without some serious effort. She pulled a screwdriver out of her bag and immediately went to work shutting the computer down and pulling away the casing.

"What are you doing?" Diggle asked.

"She has encrypted files. That seems important, don't you think? But I can't break the encryption without some effort and time, so I'm..."

"Stealing," Diggle provided.

" _Borrowing_ ," Felicity corrected primly, "the hard drive for a while."

"Your friend didn't talk about any enemies or situations that she might be involved in that could-"

"No," Felicity said. "I would have told you if she did. I would have helped her. I would have done..."

Diggle's hand appeared on her upper arm. He gave it a light squeeze, offering her silent support. "We don't know what's going on yet. Don't jump to conclusions."

"Right," she agreed. "Optimism. I can do that."

"I do not doubt it."

Felicity narrowed her eyes as she thought about his words, wondering if he was mocking her. She decided it didn't matter. She removed the casing from the computer and focused on pulling out the hard drive. It took her a very short amount of time to pull it out and tuck it into her purse. Dismantling computers took far less time than putting them back together.

"What else do you keep in that purse?" Diggle teased gently.

"That is for me to know and you not to ever find out," Felicity replied.

Diggle chuckled, and she was glad that he was working to keep things light. The tension in her chest was wound tight enough as it was. She turned and looked at the blood thoughtfully. Decided on her next course of action, she marched over to the farthest table, pulled out a blood collection kit, and swabbed all the blood she could see. She tucked the samples into her purse as well, intending to check every single one of them for clues.

Diggle walked her to her car, his warm eyes darkened by defensiveness and caution. She did not miss the way he kept his body between her and other people, nor the way his hand lingered near his pistol. The facts were thin, but he trusted her, and that helped too.

She had trouble focusing on traffic during the drive over to the foundry. Her mind kept drifting to the darkest of scenarios. It was easy to do - far easier than it would have been two and half years ago. She had seen darkness in the strangest, most vile, ways. She knew what lurked in the shadows. She believed in being optimistic and holding out hope until the last second, but she also knew that a woman being abducted without a trace was a very bad thing.

She was only vaguely aware of it when she parked her car in the alley behind the club. Diggle opened the door for her and jumped again. This time, it was her fault. She had drifted into her own mind again. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and darker thoughts and grabbed her bag. She all but ran down to the foundry, her legs eating up distance that Diggle's long ones could not.

Thankfully, the foundry was empty. The others had not arrived yet - or else they were already on patrol. Either way, she was glad. She didn't feel like explanations, and she certainly didn't feel like involving them yet.

"Digg?" she asked as she spun her chair around and sat in it.

"Yeah?" he said back.

"Could we keep this between us for right now?" she asked. "There's so much else going on right now and I'm not even really sure..."

"If that's what you want," he said.

"Thank you," she said.

"But only if the situation doesn't get serious."

"I understand," she said. "You can go back to Lyla and Sara now if you want. I know this was supposed to be your night off."

"I'm thinking Tapas for dinner. Game?" he asked her.

"Did you not hear-?"

"I heard you. I'll be back in a little bit," he said, tucking his hands into his pocket, the picture of nonchalance as he strolled away.

Felicity smiled at his back, and then went to work. She didn't know what she would find, but she knew she would find it. One way or the other, she would get her answers. Hopefully, she would not be too late; hopefully, Heather was still alive; hopefully, this was all a big misunderstanding that would right itself in a matter of hours.

Hopefully.

 


	2. Encrypted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sass, HIVE, and shoulder touching.

"Felicity?"

"Oliver," she replied, quickly pulling up a screen to hide the fact that she was mining through high-level encryption on her friend's computer. It didn't hide the hard drive that was connected to her computer or the fact that she was tense. She knew he would notice both.

"Are you okay?" he asked, taking a single step closer to her chair. It was something she had noticed him doing since their one and only kiss. It was like he wanted to be as close as possible only he resisted the urge with everything inside of him. His compromise was a step. It was frustrating because it was so unnecessary. If he really wanted her to, she would meet him halfway.

"Fine. Perfectly fine," she said.

"Felicity," he said. He managed to put all of his questions and concern into her name.

"I'm fine," she repeated.

His lips thinned into a hard line, not believing her. The flash of hurt on his face at her refusal to confide him was swift and unexpected. She did not like it.

"Sorry. I'm just..." She didn't know how to continue without dragging him into a situation that could very well be a non-situation.

"Food!" Diggle announced at the bottom of the steps. Oliver turned, his eyes leaving her face last, and cocked his head to the side to look at Diggle. He turned slightly again to look at her, a question shining in the depths. He finally turned back to Diggle, more suspicious than ever.

"I thought this was your night off and you were not to be bothered under any circumstance outside of me almost dying?" Oliver repeated Diggle's words back to him.

"That's tomorrow night," Diggle said.

Oliver's eyes narrowed.

"Gah. Fine. Why can't I stop saying fine? Whatever," Felicity said, rubbing at her forehead. "I didn't want this to be a thing, but you're nosy. It comes with brooding hero territory, I guess."

Oliver's eyebrows lifted but he didn't respond. He merely waited for her to tell him the reason she currently looked like she was battling dragons.

"My friend, Heather," she began.

"I remember her," Oliver encouraged her to continue.

"I went to meet her for dinner, but she wasn't there. She's always there. Then there was blood, not a lot, but I have samples here." She reached into her purse and pulled them out. "It sounds silly with so little to go on, which is the reason I didn't want to talk about it, but it feels like something is wrong."

Oliver looked back at Diggle, putting the pieces together. She had confided in Diggle and not him. Another brief flash of pain that he quickly buried appeared in his eyes. He nodded to show that he understood and fixed her with his characteristic stoic stare.

"I'm trying to break through the encryption on her computer right now - see what she was working on, figure out if anything could have gotten her into trouble. It won't get in the way of whatever bad guy you want to punch in the face tonight. I swear."

This seemed to unravel some of the restraints around his mind. He took two steps closer. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, which she really did, but that didn't mean she would, because he was a gigantic a-hole who liked to make life choices for her. The proximity added charge to his next statement that she couldn't deny, though.

"She's important to you," he said.

"Yes," she replied.

"Then it's important to me. I'll help however you need me to."

She stared up at him, wishing she could find a way to look at him that didn't involve all the repressed tension, sexual and emotional, and the need to have him be hers. She wished that she could stop feeling so angry that she felt so much in one of their shared stares.

"Thanks," she whispered.

He nodded again and went over to the case that housed his suit. He started pulling the leather off the mannequin, his hands confident and strong. She wrenched her eyes away from his hands as Diggle set her food in front of her.

"My hero," she said to Diggle. She paused. "Is it weird that statement can be taken so literally around here?"

"Probably, but we lead weird lives," Diggle replied.

"Tell me about it. Last night, I spent a solid thirty minutes trying to unhook my earring from my sweater. I mean, who does that?" she asked.

"That's not quite what I meant," Diggle said kindly.

"Oh, you meant the whole fighting bad guys and bringing the criminals of the city to justice?" she asked playfully.

"That would be the one," he agreed. He gestured to take in the computers. "Where are you with all this?"

"I'm...It's going to take a little bit of time."

"I'll be on comms, then," Diggle told Oliver.

"I can still..." Felicity tried to argue.

"If I need you, I will let Diggle know," Oliver interjected.

Felicity didn't reply. She focused on unwrapping her food and letting the smells hit her. It was only then that she realized she had skipped lunch in favor of fixing the glitch in the new GTX8s. It was quite possible that Diggle was a very muscular saint.

"If I weren't Jewish, I would nominate you for sainthood," Felicity said as she took her first bite. "I might do it anyways...because I'm a rebel."

"You're welcome," Diggle said.

Oliver left the building without saying anything, as was his very annoying habit, and Diggle slipped the earwig into his ear. Felicity continued to kung fu her way through the encryption as she ate, liking the fact that Diggle didn't feel the need to talk to her. He understood how she could be when she worked. They all did. She liked that so much could be said without saying anything, up to a point. That point was Oliver and his stupid, ridiculous, brooding, man-pain island he was currently holed up on. And she had gotten tired of sending him life rafts to take home, only for him to shoot them dead.

She could still hear the thwack, thwack, thwack from when he had arrowed the last life raft she had sent him.

And she was not going to focus on that right now. She refocused. She realized there was nothing left for her to do at the computer. Her program was systematically napalming the encryption. She would have to let it do its work. She grabbed the swabs of blood and put them into her shiny spectrometer. It took effort, time, and was the perfect distraction from Oliver and the angry thoughts.

"On your six," Diggle said into the comm as he watched the monitor in the center for movement. Felicity turned enough to see a man fall with an arrow in his shoulder. She was glad she didn't have an earwig in as well. She knew it would be full of screaming.

"At your nine," Diggle added.

Another man fell. This time it was via a red arrow. Roy had joined Oliver somewhere along the way. She looked at her watch and was surprised that an hour had passed.

"Do you need help?" Felicity asked.

Diggle shook his head and kept his eyes glued to the monitors. She liked that Diggle was in the foundry a bit more with the birth of Sara. He was the only one who could do her job and not make her feel like her toes were being stepped on. She fixed her eyes on the monitor, her heart beating faster at the proof of violence. She trusted Oliver to win. She trusted Roy and Oliver to have each others' backs. But her heart always raced whenever they went into battle.

Into battle. It sounded so medieval.

Once she was done setting the samples up to run, she sat down next to Diggle again and focused on running facial recognition. She hoped that one of the cameras in town picked up Heather's face and her software would find it. It could be her metaphorical haystack, if she was lucky.

"All right, man. I'm here if you need anything," Diggle said.

"They win?" Felicity asked.

"They're delivering them to the police right now," Diggle said.

"Bad guys zero, Team Arrow everything."

"Oliver said to stop calling us that," Diggle repeated with an eye roll.

"No," Felicity replied.

"She said no," Diggle said unnecessarily. She had said it loud enough for Oliver to hear.

"He just grunted at me," Diggle said. "That's just...wrong."

"He does it all the time," Felicity said with a tiny shake of her head. "One day he'll be able to communicate in full sentences and the world will implode."

"He actually huffed," Diggle said. There was a pause where he listened to Oliver. "I'll stop narrating when you stop making weird noises at me."

"A-ha!" Felicity said, rolling herself closer to the computer. Her hands started flying across the keys again as she dug through the last of the encryption and finally opened up Heather's files. Then she saw how many of them there were. Exactly one, and it was incredibly full. "Oh."

Diggle leaned closer as the mouse hovered over the folder.

"What's H.I.V.E.?" Felicity asked at the file label.

Diggle stiffened, and then leaned even closer. She leaned away from him, not really comfortable with that level of closeness. Best friend or not, they were never going to be in the sitting on each other's lap stage.

Diggle tried to take the mouse out of her hand, but there was no way on earth she was going to let him. She didn't try to take his pistol from him; he shouldn't take her weapon of choice from her. She slapped the hand away and forced him to look at her. He looked a bit wild and slightly angry.

"John?"

"Open it," he demanded.

"Okay, just calm down. Let me do it."

He nodded perfunctorily and she opened the file. What followed was a whole slew of information. It flew past her screen too fast for her to follow. It was a big data dump on what looked like a paramilitary organization. Some of the pictures were incredibly disturbing. They looked to be experiments. Other pictures were of dead people and known assassins.

"What in the...?" Felicity asked in shock.

Diggle's mouth dropped open. His lips moved as though he was trying to form words, but nothing came out. He finally clenched his jaw and turned back to the monitors.

"I need to take five," he said to Oliver.

Felicity didn't know if Oliver responded, but, suddenly, Diggle was standing and disappearing into the shadows. Felicity pulled out her own earwig from the desk and stuck it in, cutting on the link with a press of the button.

"Diggle?" Oliver sounded really concerned.

"He left," Felicity said. "I don't know how far he went."

"What's wrong?" Oliver asked.

"You need to come home," Felicity said. "I don't know what I found, but I found something, and it freaked Digg out."

"I'll be there in thirty," he promised.

She pulled the earwig out and gently set it on the table. She considered her options - wait for Oliver and talk to Digg, or do it without him around. She realized that Digg needed the minute to compose himself. A friend would let him have it. So she did the only thing that made sense, she started sorting through the data. There was a lot and she knew she couldn't make her way through all of it by the time Oliver and Roy returned, but she could give them what solid facts the file contained.

Even as she worked, she tried to understand how Heather had gotten involved in such an organization. Her second glance confirmed what first glance had told her. The organization was in the super evil category. They killed people for money, they manipulated business deals for gain, they were on a methodical crawl towards world domination. And they seemed to have a whole freaking lot of resources. It was the scary version of A.R.G.U.S., not that A.R.G.U.S. wasn't scary. It was just that the things she was seeing in the folder made Amanda Waller look like a purring kitten, in kitten heels. Felicity almost laughed at the visual.

"Where is he?" Oliver asked, pushing his hood down and sounding growly and fierce as he paced towards her.

"He wandered off that way," she replied, pointing absently.

Oliver prowled after Diggle, while Roy moved to stand beside her. "What is all this?" Roy asked.

"A lot of uh-oh," she replied.

A beep came from the computer on the right. She wheeled over to it and brought up the screen.

"Make that double uh-oh," she said.

A man's face had appeared in match to the blood sample she had run through the spectrometer. He was bearded, large, and incredibly wanted in sixteen countries for murder, espionage, assault, more murder, and a double helping of assassination of a political leader. He was not known for his finesse, and he had been in the same room as Heather.

"Care to explain?" Roy asked.

"When Oliver is done calming John down," Felicity said. "Then we can learn together."

"Right," he agreed, looking a little confused.

He ambled away to change and probably figure out what was going on. Felicity was wondering the same thing. She had no idea what she had stumbled into and she really didn't want to think that Heather was somehow connected with these people.

Five minutes later, all three men converged on her. They kept their distance, taking up their usual positions around her, but she still felt as if they were pressing in on her. It had everything to do with their serious expressions and tension. It pushed and pulled against her, making the space feel small.

"Are you okay?" she asked Diggle.

He nodded, his arms tightening from where they were crossed across his chest. Her eyes moved to Oliver next, searching for an explanation. His eyes told her that they would talk about it later. She understood that now was not the time to press. She turned back to her computer.

"There's a lot of data here, so it'll take me a while to make sense of everything, but I know that it's about a group called Holistic Integration for Viral Equality or H.I.V.E. Why couldn't they just call themselves the evil group for murder and mayhem and be done with it?"

Oliver sighed and tilted his head ever so slightly to the left. She understood the gesture as amused by annoyed.

"Right. Not important. Seems like they have a lot of hands in some very dirty places. Which is not how I meant to phrase that." She counted backwards from five in her head and continued without focusing on her unintended innuendo. "We're talking assassinations, murder, very hostile business takeovers - and you thought Isabel was bad - genocide, when it suits them, anything for a profit, really. I think they may even have ties to the League of Assassins."

Oliver stiffened and Diggle shifted his weight from one foot to the other anxiously.

"It's going to take me some time to shift through everything," Felicity said, "but none of it tells me where Heather is."

"We'll find her," Oliver promised.

"If she's not already dead," Felicity said.

They all stared at her. She inhaled sharply and shrugged. "Someone had to say it. Might as well be me."

"Let's just stay focused on what we can help," Oliver said. "Have you managed to track her at all?"

"No, I've only found this guy." She spun in her chair and pointed at the bearded evil doer on her computer. "Meet Jerry Klinger, homicidal maniac. His blood was at Heather's lab, and he is currently wanted in a lot of countries for a lot of reasons. I just started a search on him. That's all I know right now." She eyed Diggle ,who was a mixture of forced stoicism and overwhelming emotion. "Now, can you explain..." she made a gesture to take in his current state, "all this?"

Diggle inhaled deeply and looked at the group. "Deadshot gave me the name of the people who hired him to kill Andy. The name he gave me was H.I.V.E."

"Whoa," Felicity said.

Diggle gestured at the computer and the files Felicity had pulled up. "This is the most I've ever found on them."

"I've heard of them," Oliver admitted. "There were rumors of them when I was in Russia."

Diggle shot him a surprised look. Felicity merely looked. She had stopped being surprised by the way Oliver was connected to every secret organization on the planet. He had done a lot in the five years he was away. Roy was busy staring between them all as if he couldn't understand English. He looked really confused.

"What have you heard about them?" Diggle asked.

"Nothing good," Oliver replied.

Diggle clamped his lips together, obviously bursting with questions and just as eager to avoid them. Felicity can't begin to know what he's feeling at knowing that his brother's death was linked to the people in the folder, but she does know how it feels to know that Heather has information on them hidden in her computer. She feels twisted, uncertain, as if the world around her is determined to confuse and lie to her. She doesn't know how Heather is mixed up with them, and Diggle doesn't know how Andy was either. There were a lot of uncertainties in the situation. The only way to bring answers, whether they hurt or not, was to keep digging. It was to keep looking, even if the answers hurt.

"Right. Well, I am going to need space, coffee, and time," Felicity said. "If we're to find Heather, then I need to focus."

There was no argument or discussion. They trusted her to do what was necessary.

She felt a hand on her shoulder as she turned around. She didn't have to turn to know which of the three men the hand belonged to. She'd know the strength of his fingers, the warmth of his palm, and the shiver the feeling of his skin against hers caused her anywhere.

She didn't know why Oliver was suddenly touching her when he had been so careful not to the past months, but she figured it had something to do with Diggle. He was worried, and he wanted to draw strength from her - and maybe give a little back. She smiled slightly, unable to help the kneejerk reaction to his touch, and carefully dialed her focus down to the one thing that mattered to her most in that moment.

Finding Heather and getting Diggle closure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I write books for a living and like connecting to you. I'm at the places below. Let's hang out sometime. Platonically, of course. Don't be creepy.  
> https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynnie-Purcell/423463524438092  
> http://writergirlwrites.tumblr.com/  
> https://twitter.com/LynniePurcell  
> https://www.lynniepurcell.com


	3. Bumpy Rides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thailand! Core trio take a trip to rescue a damsel in distress. Go team!

Warm coffee appeared in front of her like a mirage. It was tantalizing, beautiful, and made her want to weep with joy. She perked up from where she had slumped over to be closer to the monitors and inhaled hopefully. The cup was set down in front of her and she put her entire face to the mug to breathe in the scent.

A low chuckle sounded from behind her. She blushed at the sound, knowing it wasn't Diggle, as she had thought. He had brought her the last four cups with a smile and sympathetic pat on the back. This time it was Oliver.

"Need anything else?" he asked politely.

She straightened and rubbed at the back of her neck. She looked at the clock on the computer in surprise. It was two in the morning.

"A miracle," she replied.

"I think I've burned through all of mine," he said.

She sighed, feeling the weight of his words. There was an undercurrent to them that was in everything between them now. She rubbed a tired hand across her face, and then grabbed the mug and took a long sip. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair, the coffee cup cradled to her chest warmly.

"Anything new?" he asked.

"I have a program mining through all the videos in Starling, looking for Klinger. It's not found anything yet, but I have hope. It's also looking for Heather. I don't think they'll be stupid enough to get caught on camera, but maybe. I'm also searching for anything related to Andy Diggle in this pile of awful," Felicity replied. She opened her eyes and turned enough so that Oliver was in view. She was startled at the tenderness and warmth radiating from him. She blinked several times to clear the warmth that had settled in her belly in return. It didn't really work "How's Digg?"

"About how you'd expect," Oliver said.

She nodded and started running her finger around the rim of her cup thoughtfully. "Is he upstairs?"

"I convinced him to go home."

"Good," she said. "He needs Lyla and Sara right now."

"How are you?" he asked after a pause.

"Worried sick," Felicity admitted.

Her computer pinged. She set her coffee down and leaned toward the offending computer eagerly. Oliver leaned over her shoulder, the closest he had been in weeks. For once, she didn't notice. She was too focused on what she had found.

"A video picked Klinger up on 5th and Young."

"There's nothing really out there except for the-"

"Airport," Felicity agreed, already searching through the various feeds inside the airport. Nothing.

"He could have chartered-"

"A private plane. Of course. I'm on it," she added.

She went through all the private planes that were scheduled at the airport and cross-referenced them with the timestamp on the video she had pulled up from the street. She searched the private hangers for anything that might show the black town car Klinger had been driving. There was nothing, but she was resourceful and unwilling to let nothing stand in the way of finding something.

"Two private planes left at twelve, which was near when we caught him on camera," she said. "And I think I might be able to - very illegal - task a satellite to...Yeah, here it is. Oh."

She watched helplessly as Heather was pulled out of the backseat of the car by Klinger, a tough-looking woman following after them. They marched Heather up the stairs, Klinger's hand not leaving Heather's arm once. Heather looked dazed and a little drugged. She was clearly not in her right mind as she flopped around like a rag doll against Klinger. Felicity knew her friend, knew she would fight harder if she had been in the right mind.

Felicity bit her lip as the door to the plane was closed, the stairs retracted, and the plane taxied onto the runway. They were gone. But where?

She searched for the flight manifest.

"Thailand," Felicity said. "Thailand?" she questioned.

"Mmmhm," Oliver agreed.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. He paced away from her as she continued to look for clues. Her only one was that they were headed for Bangkok. She didn't have the resources to track the plane, but she could hack into all of the video feeds of the airports in the city.

"Right. Of course. Thank you," Oliver said.

She twirled just enough in her chair to see him walking back out of the shadows. He hung up and pocketed his phone habitually. He looked at her with a mixture of expectation and wariness. She knew the look. She waited for proof of what she knew he was going to say before reacting.

"Digg and I have a flight out in an hour. We'll find her," Oliver promised.

Felicity stood. Anger, stubbornness, and fire fueled her movements, making her faster.

"You really think that I'm going to stay here?" she demanded.

"H.I.V.E. is not an organization you tempt with your life. They're dangerous. And I am not willing-"

"Would you just _stop_?!" she yelled in her angry voice. "Just stop! I am done with you making decisions about what I can and cannot do. It's insulting, misogynistic, and demeans my ability to take care of myself. You've already made enough decisions for me, thank you very much!"

He huffed, looking incredibly annoyed, and started to open his mouth to argue.

She gestured for silence and he clamped his lips together again, his head tilting back a little as he took in the look on her face.

"No. This is not up for debate. We're a team, Oliver, and I am part of it. Heather is my friend. Diggle is my friend. And I won't stop just because you huff and puff at me. I have a say, too. Now, I suggest you go pack. We have a plane to catch."

She gathered her things and stormed off, her chin lifted and her expression stoic. Oliver didn't stop her, and she knew that she had gotten her way.

 

The plane was not what she had been expecting. It was not a passenger plane or even a private one like the one they had taken to Russia. It was a military cargo plane that Oliver wouldn't explain how he had gotten a ride on. Diggle was next to her, while Oliver was across the wide aisle. He looked calm and confident. She was glad to have Oliver on the hunt, though she knew he was there for Diggle more than her.

Diggle would not be able to let the people who had killed his brother go free the same way he had Deadshot. He would keep looking into the group. He would search until he found himself in situation that was deadly, extreme, and a lot like every other day in Starling. They had to have his back, and since Oliver was great at having people's backs in life-or-death situations, she knew Diggle would survive. Oliver would make sure of it. He might not have had any miracles left to call on, but he did have a whole lot of skill, tenacity, and smarts. He was good at being a hero. She had complete faith in him.

Felicity only realized she was staring at Oliver when his eyes shifted to hers. The tension of their previous fight was still radiating between them, but it was not that tension that had them locking eyes and not backing down from the stare. It was the thing they never spoke about anymore that had her stomach in knots. It was the spark of wanting more and knowing they couldn't have it. It was attraction, physical and mental, she would never be able to sate.

He looked away first, backing down from the dare in her eyes. She sighed and put her head on Diggle's shoulder. He accepted the weight without comment and she closed her eyes, clutching the tablet to her chest protectively. It was her link to the computers in the foundry. It was how she would find Heather and figure out how Andy had been connected to H.I.V.E.

Her long night spent searching for clues and the tension of worrying about Heather soon pulled her into a deep, restless sleep, where darkness chased her every move.

 

"Felicity?" a voice called from what felt a long way off.

She grumbled something about motherboards and huffed out an annoyed breath at being disturbed.

"We're about to land. Wake up."

"Thailand is fifteen hours flight time," Felicity replied, her eyes still closed, though now that she thought about it, something metal was poking into her back and her shoulders hurt like hell. Getting up sounded pretty tempting. "I haven't slept fifteen hours."

"No, you've slept twelve hours, which is how long it took us to get to Thailand on this particular plane," Diggle replied.

"That's not possible," she said.

"It is," he said. "So you should wake up, 'cause the pilot is going to stay in Thailand just long enough to get refueled."

She grumbled, not ready to open her eyes yet.

"Felicity," Oliver interjected.

It was one word, but it was enough. She sighed and opened her eyes. The world had tilted to the side. Or was she the one her side? She reached back to rub at her neck as she pushed off the uncomfortable chairs she had been positioned across.

"I didn't sleep twelve hours," she said. "I never sleep twelve hours."

"Okay," Oliver agreed calmly.

"Don't patronize me," she added sourly, continuing to rub at her neck.

Diggle chuckled. So not helping the situation.

She was pleased to find that her tablet was still within reach. Diggle had known she would not like to be far from it, even in sleep. She pulled it to her and immediately checked the status of the plane that held Heather and the information a program was mining through in search of anything connected to Andy Diggle on her computers in the foundry.

"Heather's plane touched down in Bangkok an hour ago," Felicity said, her tone disheartened. They could be anywhere in an hour. They could be in another country.

"I have someone keeping an eye on the airport," Oliver said calmly.

"Someone?" Felicity asked.

"An old acquaintance," Oliver said with a hard edge to his voice. It was enough to make her stop digging.

While he would answer her questions if she pressed him, she knew better than to push about his past. It wasn't her place to push at all. Either he told her the truth or they left it alone. They both liked it that way. She liked when he offered the information willingly. Anything less was an insult to him.

Felicity listened to the groan of the plane and the changing whine of the engine with growing uncertainty in her chest. They were a world away from Starling City. They were chasing a shadow and a hope. She loved that Diggle and Oliver had immediately taken her side to track down Heather - it was proof of their loyalty and friendship - but she wondered if they were already too late. She worried that they would get caught in H.I.V.E.'s crosshairs and end up a whole lot of dead.

The plane landed with a bump that only the seatbelt Diggle had fastened around her helped keep her from flying into the opposite wall. She waited until Diggle gave her a thumbs up before starting to unfasten the trillion-and-one buckles. Her fingers fumbled with the straps, her mind not quite awake.

A different pair of hands landed on top of hers and gently moved hers out of the way. She looked at her lap to keep from staring at Oliver's face as he gently helped her out of the harness.

"Thanks," she said without looking at him when he was finished. His hands didn't linger. She was not surprised at how much she really wanted him to. Wanting him to linger but knowing how much it would hurt had become a fact of her life.

His reply was a curt nod and miniscule smile. He went to the bag he had tossed in the corner at the beginning of the flight and pulled his phone out of his pocket again as he walked over to the rear of the plane.

Diggle grabbed his duffle bag and joined him, silent as the grave. She had known him long enough to see the internal struggle and the war between vengeance and the moral thing that was raging within him. She trusted the moral thing would win the fight. It always did with Diggle.

She grabbed her purse, her duffle bag, and her bag of gear and joined them as they waited for the pilot to open the rear hatch.

A light switched to green on the side wall, then the entire back half of the plane rattled as the door lurched away from the inner shell of the interior. Felicity clutched her tablet to her chest a little tighter as she watched the steely pink and purple of dawn creep around the edges of the door. The air was cool but far warmer than it had been in Starling. The bomber jacket she had thrown on as an afterthought was a little too warm.

The doors opened out to a sun-bleached runway and twenty armed soldiers pointing their automatic rifles directly at them.

"So this is Thailand, huh?" Felicity asked dryly, lifting her hands automatically, her tablet still in her right hand.

One of the soldiers started yelling at them. Felicity didn't know what he was saying but she figured it was something along the lines of, "Don't move!", "Put your hands up!" or, maybe, "Your dress is really pretty!"

She liked the idea of the last one very much.

Oliver spoke calmly, addressing a squat woman with an ancient face, white hair, and sharp eyes. "What's this?"

"I remember the last time you were in Bangkok," the woman replied in deeply accented English.

"That was out of my control," Oliver said.

"Mhmm," the woman said.

She turned her attention to Felicity and Diggle. She didn't show any interest in her dark eyes, but Felicity felt her analyzing them both severely. She was curious and uncertain. She did not trust anything.

"Do you think we could have a standoff while not on the giant tarmac?" Felicity asked lightly. "I'm sure they want to refuel the plane and we're in a bit of a hurry. I know what we could do! You can find us when we're through trying to rescue my friend and we can have a standoff then. That seems reasonable."

Oliver and Diggle glanced over at her, but neither spoke or warned her to be quiet. Their looks suggested she be cautious. They were on thin ice as it was. Felicity just shrugged, her eyes not leaving the woman.

"What's your name?" the woman asked Felicity.

"Felicity," she replied instantly. "Yours?"

"Eve."

"Nice to meet you," Felicity said politely.

The woman smiled and gestured idly. The soldiers lowered their weapons instantly, and Eve stepped through their ranks, her age and weight slowing her down, but her stature remained proud and dominating. She was not a woman who put up with anyone's shit. She was wicked, dangerous, and Felicity found herself equally parts amazed and terrified.

"Your friend was taken to a building in the center of town," Eve said, handing a folded up piece of paper to Felicity. Her eyes moved to Oliver. "Stay out of my part of town - stay out of my business - and I won't shoot you."

"Understood," Oliver replied.

Eve watched him for a minute, searching for a lie, then she nodded. Oliver's word was apparently good enough for her. It was funny, considering she had met them with twenty armed soldiers and a glare. Felicity watched with wide eyes and raised eyebrows as the woman was helped into a waiting SUV and the soldiers jumped into a large truck behind her. Felicity turned to Oliver with a frown, curious and wanting an explanation.

Oliver shrugged again and walked down the long ramp to the tarmac. She watched him walk until he had rounded the corner of the plane. Her eyes shifted to Diggle, who also shrugged and joined Oliver. She started grumbling to herself, annoyed with Oliver but overall pleased with the encounter. Eve had given her a clue. She had given her more than a clue. She had given her a location.

She followed Diggle and Oliver off the plane as she opened the piece of paper. The address was written in a foreign language. It could have been gibberish for all she knew. She had to be sure. She caught up to Oliver, drawing his attention to her with a hand on his forearm and held the paper up to him to look at. He looked at the writing and nodded, as if to say the address was real and he understood her fear.

When would he stop being able to read her thoughts from her expression?

She smiled in relief and he took the paper from her. "I didn't spend too much time in this area," he admitted.

"We don't have a lot of time to scope the place out, man," Diggle pointed out. "They could move her at any moment."

"But do we have a plan?" Felicity asked.

"We'll have a plan after we know more about where they're keeping her," Oliver replied.

"Right," Felicity agreed firmly. "Why did Eve give me the paper and not you?" she asked as they walked into the building.

"She liked you more," Oliver said.

"Oh," she replied, surprised.

"Charming crazy people wherever you go," Diggle said.

"Why do you think I hang out with you two?" Felicity asked.

"Walked right into that one," Diggle mused.

Oliver smirked and nodded.

The ride over to the hotel Oliver had picked out was quiet. Felicity kept her eyes on the tablet, Oliver watched the city roll past, and Diggle kept a continuous text conversation up with Lyla.

They paused at the hotel just long enough to drop their bags in their rooms, then left again in a taxi straight from hell. It smelled, the driver was hell-bent on crashing into something, anything, - be it a parked car or a pedestrian - and the constant stopping and starting made Felicity feel queasy. The only thing that made her feel steady was the fact that she was squished between two very muscular men who kept her wedged against the seat. If they did crash, their muscles would probably act like airbags. She felt incredibly safe and protected.

"Here's fine," Oliver said, pushing a few bills toward the driver.

The driver careened toward the sidewalk and Oliver quickly opened the door. He helped Felicity out, not paying attention to his usual reserve in his eagerness to get out of the cab.

She took in the sights, forgetting for a second that they were in the middle of a serious situation. The sights and smells were overwhelming, foreign and, somehow, still familiar. Diggle joined them on the sidewalk and the taxi merged back into traffic with a lot of horn blowing and swearing from the other drivers.

"That building," Oliver said, pointing with his chin, his hands tucked into his pockets.

Felicity looked at the shiny, modern building with equal parts trepidation and surprise. Weren't kidnap victims supposed to end up in rundown shacks and old factories? All of the kidnappings she had helped solve so far had, except for when Vertigo had nabbed her, but she didn't like to think about that. It didn't make sense, but she trusted the information. More importantly, she trusted Oliver.

"What now?" she asked, trying to keep her uncertainty out of her voice and failing miserably.

 


	4. Hide and Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity and co. infiltrate the evil lair of doom to get Heather back. Oliver knows what Felicity would like to eat without asking. Diggle gets an alias. My favorite trio kick ass.

"Well, this is different," Diggle said laconically, looking up at the building.

"We won't die of asthma trying to get inside, at least," Felicity said. "Like some dirty, old buildings I can name."

"Come on," Oliver said, subtly gesturing them away from the building. Felicity realized that staring at it like an idiot probably wasn't the wisest of plans. She followed Oliver down the sidewalk and to a small sidewalk cafe. They took their seats, Oliver sitting with his back to the wall, and looked at the building in silence.

"It's impossible to get a feel for guards, location, and security in a building like that," Oliver said.

"Not without going inside," Diggle said.

"So our big plan is to walk in there?" Felicity asked.

"I was thinking about sneaking," Oliver said.

"Wait. Just wait. Let me do my thing," Felicity said, holding up her hand. "Because if we get caught sneaking into this building, then I think things are going to go from awful to holy frak very quickly. H.I.V.E. doesn't seem like the type of organization to really care about collateral damage."

She tapped across her tablet screen quickly as Oliver ordered them all food from the well-dressed man who came to serve them. The plates were being set down by the time she had the history of the building, the businesses that worked inside, and the shell companies that made up the holding company of the property.

"The building is fifteen stories. It has seven businesses inside, including the owners of the property, a Hammond, Kane, and Associates. They're on the top floor and it looks like they're a shell corporation with lots of holdings all over the world. Dollars to donuts, they're connected to H.I.V.E. The other businesses look legitimate, as far as I can tell."

"So, we have to get to the top floor," Oliver said, craning his neck slightly to look up.

"Why can't we just schedule an appointment with them?" Felicity asked. She gestured at Oliver. "Not you, of course. They would recognize Oliver Queen in a heartbeat, but Digg and I could-"

"No," Oliver said.

"-Go inside and figure out where they're keeping Heather. And you could find a way to arrow your way inside through the roof if we get in trouble," she continued as if she hadn't heard him. "All I would need to do is set up an appointment."

"No," Oliver repeated.

"It's no worse than the Merlyn job," Felicity pointed out.

"That's-"

"Don't you dare say different," she said.

She looked down at her food, realizing that it smelled delicious and her stomach was rolling hungrily. She took a bite, despite being mid-argument, and sighed happily. She looked over at Diggle's plate curiously. Oliver had ordered them all different things. Her food was perfect. Diggle's, likewise, suited him. She shook off the thought as Oliver clamped his lips together.

"It's not different. You just want to think it is," she said quietly. "Heather is my friend. This is as much my mission as it yours. You don't get to bark orders and just expect me to obey. Not this time, probably not ever, come to think of it."

"This is my mission," Oliver said. "I started it."

"And now it's more," she said. "Whether you like it or not."

He stilled at that, his intense stare focused on her face. She looked back just as intensely, then slowly brought a bite of food up to her mouth, because it was too delicious to waste on a stare down. His lips twitched, as if fighting the urge to smile. She grinned impudently at him and looked over at Diggle. Diggle winked at her.

"I'm setting up the appointment for one John Stewart," Felicity said, hacking into the database. "It's in three hours. That should give us enough time to get ready, right?"

Oliver nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Great!" she said brightly. "Now, what is this and how do I have it every single day?" She pointed down at her plate. Oliver rolled his eyes and answered her with humor in his voice.

 

The plan was simple. She and Diggle would walk in, go to the top floor, and do some constructive snooping. Oliver would be waiting to help outside, they would save Heather, and everyone could go home in one piece. It was elegant in its simplicity.

Felicity knew a lot could go wrong.

There was a small security desk manned by a thin wisp of a man by the front door. He gave them IDs to wear and directed them to the proper floor. Felicity was surprised by the apparent lack of security. It had her hackles raised defensively. It made absolutely no sense. As they stepped into the elevator, she noticed Diggle having a similar reaction. He was wearing a nice suit, an expensive tie, and looked rather pretty, not that she would ever phrase it that way to his face. The only thing that marred his appearance was his concerned frown.

"I have a bad feeling," Felicity said once the doors were closed.

"Yeah, something's off," Diggle agreed. "There should be more security."

"Do I need to come in?" Oliver asked in their ears, sounding far too eager.

"Not yet," Diggle replied, throwing an amused smirk over to Felicity. She rolled her eyes playfully and Diggle's smirk turned into a grin.

They waited in silence for the elevator to reach the top floor. There was soft ding, then the doors slid open slowly. Felicity's eyes widened at what greeted her on the other side. Three men and two women in black suits - all of them burly and muscular - were crowded around the elevator. The woman in front shifted far too fast for Felicity to track the movement, though Diggle surged forward. Then, she felt a prick and a sting and she was falling.

 

Felicity groaned. It wasn't only the fact that she was lying on a cold, hard floor or the stinging in her neck, or even the pounding of her head. It was in the fact that she was freaking tired of getting taken against her will. If she had known signing up with Oliver meant consistent abduction, she might have rethought the whole thing.

"Oh, good. You're not dead. I was starting to worry," a woman's voice said from somewhere behind her.

It took Felicity a minute around the pain in her head and the anger at being taken to realize she recognized the voice. She sat up slowly and turned so that she was no longer putting all her weight on her hip. Heather was strapped to the wall via a zip tie, her legs splayed out in front of her and her back slumped over. She had bruises forming at her neck and eye, and blood was caked on her lip.

"Heather," she said in relief.

"Sup?" Heather asked.

Felicity laughed. "Nothing much. You?"

Heather tugged on the zip tie. "Just hanging out. To be honest, I feel a bit tied up at the moment."

Felicity crawled over to her, because walking was definitely not an option around the pounding in her head and the wooziness in her stomach. She touched the zip tie, but she had nothing to cut it with. She sighed and leaned against the wall next to Heather in defeat. A door was directly across from them. She would test it out when her head had calmed down a bit.

Heather eyed her curiously. "What are you doing here?

"I'm here to rescue you," Felicity said.

Heather snorted. "I feel safer already."

Felicity chuckled nervously and swallowed hard. Her throat was sandpaper and her eyes felt weighted. She just really wanted to go back to sleep.

"What did you do?" Felicity asked after a short pause. "How on earth are you connected to H.I.V.E.?"

"Broke into my computer, huh?" Heather asked.

"A little bit, yeah," Felicity said.

"You shouldn't have come," Heather said more seriously, finally losing the calm facade she had been putting up for Felicity's benefit. Felicity saw panic, terror, and doubt that they would live past the night. She had never seen her friend look so unraveled.

"Yes, I should have. And are you really going to waste time by chastising me for trying to save your life?" Felicity asked.

"It was kind of stupid," Heather admitted.

"Not at all what two geniuses are capable of," Felicity said.

"You're the genius. I just study really hard," Heather said.

"First: awww. Second, don't be ridiculous. They way you managed to link the nanites to the carbon neural network on that one thing saved my bacon," Felicity said.

"That wasn't brilliance or anything," Heather said. "I just saw the..." She trailed away thoughtfully. "If we start talking tech, we'll never get out of here."

"Right. Talking later," Felicity agreed.

Felicity grimaced, and then purposefully pushed off the ground. She swayed slightly as she straightened, but she took the fact that she didn't throw up or faint as proof that she was mostly okay. She kicked off her heels when she realized they just made her feel wobbly and hurried over to the door. It was locked. Of course it was locked. She jiggled the handle to be sure it wouldn't come away easily.

"It's locked," Heather said with another amused smile.

"Thank you, yes, I see that," Felicity replied. She looked at the handle more closely. "There's no physical lock," she pointed out.

"Electronic, you think?" Heather asked.

"Yeah," Felicity agreed, her brain working two steps ahead. She took in the room, not seeing much in the way of tools. Then, she looked up and saw that the ceiling consisted of tiles. It was not solid steel or hard to reach - it was typical office cheapness at play. She smiled. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah," Heather said, grunting as she pushed against the floor. Felicity hurried over to help her, and Heather finally gained her feet. Heather also looked up, following Felicity's train of thought. "The wires to the door are probably tucked away up there, sure, but they won't do anything about this." She tugged on her wrist.

"I'll have to find a knife."

"No, if you can get out, you get out," Heather said firmly. "This is my situation I pulled you into and there's no sense-"

"No," Felicity said firmly. "I won't leave you here."

"But I-"

"I said no!" Felicity replied.

Heather stopped trying to argue, though her expression was incredibly rebellious. She stared at Felicity, waiting for her to make the first move. Felicity gestured for Heather to hold her hands out, then Felicity jumped into the hand awkwardly, almost falling in the process. Heather grunted again, clearly still unstable, but Felicity moved fast. She crawled onto Heather's shoulders, bracing her weight against the wall as she balanced on the arches of her feet. She lifted the tile with her fingertips and gently moved it to the side. She couldn't see beyond the space where the tile had been, however. She would have to climb up.

She had been trying to get in shape, but a full pull up looked like a lot of work from where she was standing. She wobbled a bit as Heather shifted and carefully bit back her hiss to stay still. They were both doing incredibly well considering they had just been drugged and kidnapped. She grabbed either side of the metal railings that kept the ceiling in place and pulled. She groaned, grunted, and finally started to move up. It was slow, torturous, and Heather actually whimpered at one point.

"Got it," Felicity finally panted.

"Do you see the wires?" Heather asked from what sounded like a long way off. Felicity had the suspicion that Heather had collapsed to the ground again.

Felicity searched the dark, wishing she had a flashlight. Finally, she caught the glint of something metallic. "Maybe. Hold on."

She slowly crawled over the metal supports, careful not to step on the tiles and fall through, and finally came to a stop in front of a solid wall. It was the same wall the door was on. It explained why they weren't worried about escapes through the ceiling. She ran her fingers along the wall and traced the glint of metal back to a packet of wires. She didn't have anything to cut the wires with, but she did have her hands and teeth.

She stripped away what she could and took a second to consider what she wanted. Decided on a course of action, she went to work. Wires were her life, so it took her a very short amount of time to get the result she wanted.

"I think the door just clicked," Heather's whispered voice floated up to her. "You did it."

Felicity mentally fist pumped the air and slowly turned around. She crawled back the way she had come. She swallowed heavily when she looked out through the opening and realized how far she had to jump to reach the ground again. Heather stared back up at her, looking spent.

Felicity closed her eyes and gave herself a mini pep-talk, including all the times she had faced heights far worse. She had parachuted out of a rickety plane, she had swung across an elevator shaft, she had been manhandled out of a clock tower...She could do this.

She lowered herself out of the hole and let her body drop down with her eyes closed. She was surprised when she felt the ground under her and nothing really hurt. She opened her eyes, proud herself, and saw that Heather was staring at her.

"I'm serious about getting out if you can," Heather said. "You don't know these people. You don't know what they'll do to you. I can take care of myself."

"I'll be back in a minute," Felicity said, pushing off the ground and walking over to the door.

She paused, her hand on the metal door knob. She had no way of knowing if a guard stood on the other side. The only way to be sure was to open the door. It was an incredibly terrifying thought. She took a deep breath, feeling entirely like she was about to fall again, and inched the door open ever so slightly.

The room on the other side of the door looked like an executive office. It was nothing like the one she was slowly making into her own, thank goodness, or she would never have been able to look at the space the same. This office was closed up, private, no sense of transparency. It consisted of dark woods, plush carpet, and expensive furniture. She went to the desk first and searched through the drawers for scissors or a letter opener.

She went to the door that closed her off from the rest of building, thinking that if there was ever a guard, it would be on the opposite side of the main door. But she knew that no secretary would go without scissors. They were a necessity. They were a gift to humankind when it came to opening the plastic packages people liked to ship things in. They were life.

She silently padded over to the door and opened it a crack. She didn't see anyone, but she did hear the sounds of violence in the distance. She had a very good idea who was behind those sounds. Oliver was fighting his way to them. She was determined to meet him halfway.

She slipped out around the door and ducked behind the small desk by the door. She found the scissors almost instantly and ran back to Heather. Heather stood, looking surprised, and allowed Felicity to cut off the restraint. She rubbed at her wrist and looked around the room uncertainly.

"Come on," Felicity urged her.

Heather hesitated, then something sparked in her eyes. It was trust, Felicity realized - trust that Felicity knew what she was doing. Felicity smiled at her encouragingly and they ran out of the room together. They paused before the stepped out of the executive office. Heather's eyes widened at the sound of gunfire, and Felicity made the decision to go right. She pulled Heather after her and hoped that she found the stairs before the bad guys found them.

The thought had barely entered her mind when two people appeared at the end of the hall. Felicity took a sharp left turn into an abandoned office and slammed the door shut. She locked it, knowing it wouldn't keep them out for long. They most likely had a key. She pulled Heather into the corner. A second later, the door rattled as one of the pair kicked it.

Felicity jumped as it rattled a second time. The second rattle sounded different. It was a lot less directed at the door and more like an afterthought. There was another hit followed by a low groan. Heather and Felicity clutched at each other; Felicity's heart was racing and her mind was going through all the likely endings of the scenario. All of them ended with her and Heather in bloody heaps on the ground.

The pounding stopped abruptly. There was a pause. Then, a knock came from the other side. It was polite, expectant. Felicity frowned in confusion. Since when did bad guys knock?

"Felicity?" an equally polite voice asked.

She was moving instantly. She unlocked the door and tossed it back eagerly. She wanted to make sure it was really him. His shirt had blood on it and there was a cut on his cheek. She reached out and brushed her fingers under the cut without thinking. His hand twitched, but he didn't touch her back.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his eyes moving to Heather to break the intensity of their stare.

"Yeah," Felicity replied. "Diggle?"

"Still looking," Oliver said tightly. He gestured them out of the room. Felicity took Heather's arm and met Oliver back at the door. He led the way down the hall, his protective mode in overdrive. Felicity hated how glad she was for it when she spent the rest of the time annoyed that he was so protective of her. They reached the end of the hall and Oliver jiggled the handle. The door was locked. He reared back and kicked it open.

"He makes opening doors a lot sexier than you do," Heather murmured to Felicity.

Felicity didn't think she could reply coherently to that, not without a lot of blushing and unintended innuendos. Oliver held the door open for them and they walked into a stairwell. Felicity paused on the landing.

"What about Diggle?" she asked.

"I'll come back for him," Oliver said.

"I don't want to leave without him," Felicity said.

"This is my world," Oliver said. "You have to trust me."

"I do," she said immediately.

"Then we do this my way," Oliver said.

Felicity nodded and Oliver gently touched her shoulder to get her moving. She pulled on Heather and they started down the stairs. Felicity stopped counting the number of stairs after twenty-five. Her legs burned and the throbbing in her head grew worse with every step. Finally, they reached the door on the ground level. Oliver stopped Felicity from opening the door with a hand on her shoulder. He shuffled around until he was in front of them and peeked around it.

After a minute of staring, he gestured them out. Felicity stepped out into the sunshine, surprised that the people on the street were so normal and calm. How could they not know about the drama raging around the upper floors of the building? How could they be so calm?

Oliver hesitated as he looked at them. He was visibly torn.

"We're fine. We'll go hide at the restaurant. Go get Diggle," Felicity said.

Her words brought a flash of darkness to his eyes. She could see his past in one look. He nodded at her, a promise to bring Diggle back. She believed him. She stared back, hoping he saw her faith in his goodness and his ability to save their friend. He disappeared around the edge of the door, letting it swing shut gently behind him. Her heart seemed to disappear with him.

"Come on," Felicity said.

She pulled Heather away from the building and into the crowd on the street.


	5. A Touch of Closeness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anngggssttt! Lots and lots of angst. Oliver and Felicity have a discussion about love, there's some face cradling, and touching of legs. (Don't worry - it'll all work itself out in the end.)

Felicity stared up at the building anxiously. She had been staring at it for the past fifteen minutes. Heather was sitting next to her, and she had her cheek pressed against the table. She did not look well. Felicity had a lot of questions for her, but they were not as important as Diggle and Oliver leaving the building alive.

Then, a fireball surged out of the top floor, shattering the peace and quiet of the street. People around her started screaming and panicking. Felicity could only stare. Heather jumped to her feet, ready for a fight. She was saying something to Felicity, but Felicity's ears had filled with a rushing sound that may have been her thundering heartbeat.

Her world was narrowed to one second, one flash of light, one moment of fear. It was her everything. Had her heart stopped beating? She raised one hand to her chest to be sure and felt her mouth drop open in shock.

Heather touched her shoulder. She didn't respond. She was trembling now, her entire body shaking with the anxiety and pain.

"Felicity!" Heather's voice cut through Felicity's massive freak out. "Look!"

Felicity had enough presence of mind to turn at the relief in Heather's voice. She saw Oliver first - of course her eyes found his immediately. They always did. He had Diggle's arm around his shoulders and was practically carrying him, which was impressive. They were both bleeding and covered in sweat and soot, but they were alive.

She sprang out of her seat once the shock faded and ran across the street to him - them. She jumped towards them both, wrapping one arm around Oliver's next and the other around Diggle's. She squeezed them tightly, wishing she could hold them in the safety of her arms forever.

"It's okay," Oliver whispered in her ear.

"Ouch," Diggle added.

Felicity released them at the pain in Diggle's voice and put her hands on his chest. "Are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," Diggle replied.

"We need to get off the street," Oliver said, ever the sentimentalist. She didn't miss how his hand lingered at the small of her back, though. How could she when it was proof that he was okay?

He pulled Diggle to the curb and looked around as if he was shopping for a shirt or deciding on dinner. In the midst of the chaos, hailing a cab was impossible. Oliver didn't try. He went to one of the cars that had been abandoned so the driver could stare at the burning building and put Diggle into the passenger seat. Felicity pushed Heather into the back and crawled in after her. Oliver got behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb, bringing relief to every person in the car.

They were silent as they drove back to the hotel. Felicity pressed her forehead against the cool glass and closed her eyes. The thought that she had a concussion from her fall in the elevator was fleeting. Her thoughts dwelled on the terror she had felt at almost losing Diggle and Oliver and the relief seeing them alive had brought to her. She couldn't seem to push the panic out of her mind. For a fleeting instant, she understood Oliver's rationale. She understood how pushing people away was less painful when dealing with life and death on a constant basis.

She also knew that she would rather enjoy whatever moments she had with them than not.

Even though her eyes were closed, she sensed the tension and disapproval in Oliver and the questions in Diggle. It was aimed at her friend. No one was in the frame of mind to talk about anything remotely serious yet, though. They were too battered, bruised, and tired. The last time Felicity had seen Heather this nervous, she had a date with an actual, literal, astronaut. It had not gone well. Heather kept shifting and twisting her hands in her lap. Every few seconds, the creak of the leather seat alerted Felicity to more awkward shuffling.

When they got to the hotel, Oliver slammed his door harder than necessary - just in case anyone missed his anger - before he retrieved Diggle. Heather had the good sense to jump and be afraid. She shot Felicity an uncertain look before fumbling with her seatbelt and following Felicity out of the car. Felicity did her best to offer her support, but she had doubts and questions, too. She didn't know what to believe or think.

Felicity pulled one of Diggle's arms over her shoulder as Oliver balanced him on the asphalt. Together, they carried him to his room. When they finally sat him on the bed, Oliver pulled up Diggle's pant leg to look at the damage. Blood was gushing from a large wound near his knee. Felicity grabbed Diggle's bag, knowing he always kept medical supplies with him just in case. She pulled out the small kit and handed it to Oliver.

"I think you owe us an explanation," Oliver said firmly, his eyes not leaving Diggle's injury.

Heather, who was hovering near the door, crossed her arms defensively. Felicity looked back at her, assessing, curious, wondering again what could have pulled her friend into H.I.V.E.'s orbit. Anyone else would have seen contrariness and aggression from her posture. Instead, Felicity saw her friend working through all the scenarios. She was processing her arguments, their arguments, and working her way to the inevitable conclusion that telling the truth was the only option. Her friend was smart. She did not waste time on conversations that did no one any good.

"My very good friend since childhood was murdered," Heather began, her eyes on Felicity, as if she were the only one in the room. Felicity understood. It was easier to make such an admission to a friend. "She ended up doing some very bad things and lost her way for a while, but I knew her. She was a good person, just a little...She forgot what her own goodness looked like. She remembered, or the killing got to be too much, and she was killed for it. By H.I.V.E. I discovered files on her computer - mostly the same files that you found on mine - and I realized she was putting together a dossier to give to the government. I also realized that it wasn't enough. The people she worked for are too powerful to let a few documents ruin them. I needed to bring them down from the inside out. So I let them find me. I let them use me. They're always looking for new, "talent," as they like to call it. They found out what I was doing somehow. I don't know how. They're smarter than me, obviously."

The speech was given in a dry, clinical tone, but Felicity saw the pain. She also saw the fact that Heather's eyes were glossy.  She could feel tears of empathy in her eyes. The mention of the friend who had lost her way was a punch to the gut. It sounded so much like Sara.

"Why not just kill you?" Oliver asked gruffly, still not entirely convinced.

"I dabble in lots of things," Heather replied, finally looking at Oliver. "One of those things is molecular pathology."

"Oh crap," Felicity said.

Heather nodded. She caught Oliver's and Diggle's blank stares.

"Disease," Heather simplified.

"Oh," Oliver replied, his eyes widening ever so slightly in horror.

"At least I think that's what they wanted. They weren't very clear. I have a feeling that building we were in was just a front, a holding area. They kept talking like they were waiting for word from someone in charge to move me, or like they were expecting someone to arrive. I don't know. I was drugged for most of it. Not the fun kind of drugged, either. Although, there was that one time in Amsterdam..."

"Heather," Felicity said gently.

Heather snapped back to the present with a sheepish smile. "Some other time, maybe."

"You just Oliver'd her," Diggle said with a chuckle, his eyes sparkling.

Oliver was suddenly incredibly focused on tending to Diggle's injury, and Felicity was the color of her favorite red dress. She pointedly stared at Heather, unwilling to look at Oliver and realize how much he had rubbed off on her.

"I'm sorry all that happened to you," Felicity said, stepping closer and taking her friend's hand. "But I'm glad you're safe now."

"Thanks," Heather replied softly.

"Do you have more questions?" Felicity asked, her eyes on Oliver.

"A lot more," he said.

"Can they wait?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied after an intense stare in which he seemed to say that he could wait if it made her happy.

Felicity increased the pressure on Heather's hand and tugged her out of the room. Her room was directly in the middle of Diggle's and Oliver's, which had been Oliver's doing. She didn't understand why it was necessary, other than some lame-ass tactical reason he had given her. She pushed open the door and gestured at the bags by the door.

"I think you need a shower, a change of clothes, and some rest," Felicity said.

"Are you mothering me right now?" Heather asked.

"A little," Felicity said.

"Cool," Heather replied with an impish grin.

"I am. Usually," Felicity agreed. She looked around the small room thoughtfully. It was cramped, and Felicity had the feeling that Heather needed to have a solid cry without anyone overhearing. She would if the situations were reversed. "I'll give you some privacy. Take whatever you need from my stuff. I over packed anyways."

"I'm shocked. Really," Heather said.

Felicity rolled her eyes playfully and started to leave. Heather caught her, her eyes filling again. She wrapped her arms around Felicity's middle and held her close for a second. "Thank you. Seriously," Heather whispered.

"You're welcome," Felicity replied.

Heather released her and turned away before Felicity could see her face. Felicity quietly closed the door behind her. She didn't know where to go. She could go back into the room with Diggle and Oliver, and they could talk about the situation, what they needed to do next, and figure out a way to make everything okay. Or she could lean against the wall and try to get her building panic attack under control.

Control sounded nice. She was found of control. She was definitely going to do that.

She stopped in the space between her room and Diggle's and leaned her head against the bland wall. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, feeling like they were the only things keeping her from flying apart. She slowed her breathing and willed the fear, pain, and uncertainty to leave her.

The door to Diggle's room opened and Oliver stepped out with Diggle's medkit in hand. She heard the low sound of Diggle talking. She knew he was on the phone with Lyla, probably needing the sound of her voice as much as Felicity wanted to have Oliver hug her. Oliver paused when he noticed her, taking in her posture and rapid breathing in concern.

"Are you-?"

"Is Diggle okay?" she interjected before he could ask her that question. She didn't want to answer it.

"Yeah. I think he might have a minor concussion. We'll need to keep an eye on him for the next few hours to make sure he's okay."

"All right," she said.

"It's your turn," he said then, stepping closer and closing out Diggle with a firm snap of the door.

"Huh?" she asked eloquently.

He pointed down to her legs. She followed the finger and looked at her bare legs. Her skirt was torn along the left leg, her shoes were still missing, and blood was running down from her shins. She vaguely remembered the metal of the ceiling cutting into her as she crawled to get to the wires. The adrenaline had kept her from feeling it. Her legs throbbed angrily as she realized they should be hurting.

"Oh," she said.

Oliver gently reached out and urged her to walk with a small tug on her elbow. There was only one place they could go that wasn't occupied. Felicity was not looking forward to it. She tried to balk, but his expression was unrelenting. Getting patched up was a lot less effort than getting into a fight over something that didn't really matter. He held the door to his room open for her, then gestured for her to sit on the bed. She did so very tentatively. She bounced a couple of times, testing the firmness of the mattress in a distraction.

"Your mattress is nicer than mine," she complained, trying to cut the tension.

Oliver's lips ticked ever so slightly upward. He knelt in front of her, bringing visuals to mind of him kneeling in front of her for a very different reason. She blinked, letting them stay closed for longer than strictly necessary to keep him from seeing her arousal. She flinched when the cold of antiseptic hit her shins, and her eyes opened again.

"Are you okay?" Oliver tried again.

She looked over his head to keep from looking into his eyes. "No. I'm not. I'm scared."

"Of H.I.V.E.?" Oliver asked.

"Of them, of the fact that Heather and Diggle are wrapped up in this situation, and of that moment when I saw the explosion and I thought...Of seeing that come true and not being able to..." She couldn't finish. Oliver's hands stilled on her legs. They were warm, a stark contrast to the cold antiseptic.

"Felicity," he said.

She waited. Though he had put a couple of confessions worth of meaning into her name, it wasn't good enough. She needed more. She wasn't panicking anymore, but the things they had both been avoiding were harder to shove away. She felt exposed - raw. The fact that she had thought him dead added to her heightened emotions.

"I'm okay. Digg's okay," he said.

"Until you're not," she said.

"What are you saying?" he asked carefully, considering his words before he spoke. "Do you want out?"

She laughed without humor. "If Sara dying, an earthquake machine leveling half the glades, getting kidnapped a grand total of four times now, and being in a love triangle with you and The Arrow didn't make me quit by now, nothing will."

It took her all of three seconds to realize what she had said. She closed her eyes again, wishing that Oliver would pull his hands away from her legs. His left one had wrapped around her calf. It felt intimate. It _was_ intimate. She couldn't find the words to make him stop touching her, though. It felt amazing, and she missed their touches, the flirting. She missed him.

She opened her eyes, being nothing if not brave, and immediately locked eyes with him. It was the intense stare to end all stares. It was loaded, full of emotion, and made her want to kiss him. It was not how she needed to be feeling when they had so many other things to worry about.

"Let's just forget I said that," she gave him an out.

"I don't think I can," he said.

She felt her cheeks flushing with anger and irritation. He kept hinting at his feelings, bringing them up just when she felt she was getting to a better place, but never taking the step she wanted him to take.

"Oliver," she complained.

He sighed. His hands started moving on her legs again. It didn't make him feel any less close. She felt like he was purposefully taking his time, trying to extend the moment. The tragedy was that if he wanted to touch her for the rest of her life she would let him. They could be epic, if not for the fact that he was scared. And she had no doubt that's where his reluctance was based. He was afraid.

"I just want you to be happy and safe," he said quietly.

"You want to caveman me," she said. "I get that what we do is dangerous. I get the risks. I get the fact that this mission we're on is impossibly dodgy. I wonder everyday if it's the last time I'm going to see you. You don't think I'm aware of those things?" She inhaled sharply. "No, you want to put me in tower and throw away the key because you think I can't take care of myself. You think I'm weak. You think I'm not worth it. You think I'm..."

His hands darted up to grab her face. The flashback to the hospital was instantaneous. She couldn't let him do this to her again. She had promised herself to only be with him, to kiss him, if he was all in. She was worth more than goodbye.

"Felicity. You are always worth it. I love you, and I'm sorry that I can't take that back. I'm sorry that I can't stop feeling this way, sorry that I can't be the man, and the hero, you need me to be. If I could be different, I could stop hurting you. I could stop making you uncomfortable. I could pretend that I didn't feel this way..."

Felicity was stunned. It was the most she had heard him speak in a long time, if not ever. Oliver was not a fan of using his words. He preferred internalizing, puppy dog eyes, and clamping his mouth shut to keep from saying what he felt. It usually took anger for him to speak so much. She saw so much sorrow, desperation, and pain in his eyes.

His face was so close to hers. His eyes were pleading with her, willing her to understand. Her problem wasn't a lack of understanding. She knew exactly where he was coming from and why. She knew him better than she had known anyone to date.

Her problem was that he was ever so slowly abandoning her, and it was far worse than a clean tear. She had to watch as he trickled away from her, second by second, stupid decision after stupid decision. She had to see the walls being slowly, irrevocably, built up between them because he thought he wasn't worthy of happiness - because he thought he would get her killed. He wasn't willing to take a leap of faith with her. She knew he had been hurt far too many times to count over the years. He had loved and lost a lot. Most people would have given up after losing so much. He kept fighting, but that didn't mean he fought for personal happiness. He fought for the happiness of others, and it killed her to know that he thought he didn't deserve it as well.

She also had a big problem with the three words that had begun his apology. She had doubted his love. She had tried to reason it away, but the look in his eyes when he had spoken those words left her with nowhere to place her fear and uncertainty. He loved her. He meant it. And she loved him back. She didn't know what was keeping them apart. She really didn't. The entire situation made absolutely no sense to her.

Her eyes flickered to his lips, knowing that if she kissed him again, it would be another goodbye. It wouldn't be a beginning. He wasn't ready for that. His eyes dropped as well and she sensed him eager to continue what he had started in the hospital.

"You can't even see it," she said, anger flaring in her chest. "You can't see how much I want you to be with me - how much you deserve to have what you want without beating yourself up over it. All you see is the past, the choices you've made, and the fact that your crusade might get me killed. Well, I'm in this crusade whether you love me or not, whether I love you or not, and you can't protect me from what's coming for us. No one can. I don't mind you loving Starling. I don't mind you fighting for its people. I just wished you would fight for them at my side."

She pushed his hands away and stood abruptly, not able to handle the closeness or his hands on her body. She retreated to the door, her control ebbing away as she saw the pain return to his eyes. She wanted to give him happiness. She wanted to make him see that he was worth it. Only, he wouldn't let her in. It was his fault. The idiot.

"Heather should be out of the shower by now. I'm going to take one, then we can talk about what we're doing about HIVE."

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking a little lost.

She took a deep breath to steady herself before she spoke. "Heather can't go back to Starling with them chasing her. And Diggle won't let it go, so we need to figure something out."

"The priority is getting Heather somewhere safe," Oliver said.

"I'll tell you what, you try to tell her and Diggle what to do and I'll stand around feeling smug at how they hand you your ass," she said tightly.

With that, she left, hoping the exit was at least slightly dramatic.

She was proud of herself for denying herself another kiss with Oliver and also completely irritated. She wondered if she could have said something differently, done something differently, or not been so angry with him. She was not nearly as certain as she wanted Oliver to think. She felt lost, conflicted, and completely in love with a man who was too noble for his own good.

"Love is stupid," she grumbled to herself as she walked back to her room.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get answers about H.I.V.E., Heather and Felicity bonding, the team getting ready to be badasses. It's a bit short, but I like the sass in this one. Thanks for reading! : )

"This is the closest I've been in seven years to the people who had my brother killed and you want me to just forget about it?" Diggle demanded.

"The second I go home, another team will find me and either kidnap me to work on their project or kill me to keep their organization a secret," Heather said. "Neither sound fun. Well, one sounds more fun than the other, but I definitely think there's a third option here."

"Not to mention the fact that H.I.V.E. is behind hundreds of murders, some of which have been linked back to Starling," Diggle added. "Felicity said they were tied to the league and she even found a link to Slade."

Oliver, who had his arms crossed and his jaw clenched, glanced over at her for the briefest of moments. He had been avoiding looking at her since he had brought up the desire to leave and the others had started hitting him with solid reasons why that was a really terrible idea. The "I told you so" was very evident in her eyes. She nodded to show that Diggle was right and Oliver quickly looked away.

"What link?" Oliver asked the floor. Or at least that's where he was looking when he asked the question.

"It's not relevant right now," Diggle said. "What is relevant is the fact that we have a real shot."

"You don't unravel an organization like H.I.V.E. with a three person team," Oliver said. "You just don't. It's picking a fight we can't win."

"I don't need to take out the entire organization right now," Diggle said. "I just need to find the person who sent out the order to have Andy killed."

"And do what with them exactly?" Oliver asked.

Diggle didn't reply.

"I get that you have that brooding alpha male thing going for you," Heather said to Oliver, "but you can't actually force us to leave."

Oliver caught her eyes, darkness and anger in the depths. It was a look that said he very much could make her leave if he was so inclined. Heather's eyes widened in fear.

"Okay, so maybe you could, but it wouldn't solve anything, and Mr. Diggle seems a whole harder to force to leave than I am." Heather eyed Diggle's arms appreciatively.

Felicity put her hand on Heather's arm to get her to stop glaring at Oliver, and focused on making her voice soft and reasonable.

"Oliver, John needs us."

Oliver nodded. It was all he needed to hear. As he did, Felicity's tablet beeped.

"It pinged," Diggle said.

"It did," Felicity said. She pulled up the screen and saw the reason for the ping. It was not good. Her eyes widened. She hesitated, not wanting to share what she had found with Diggle.

"What is it?" Diggle asked.

She knew she couldn't lie - not to Diggle - but she really didn't want to answer. She settled for a compromise. She held out the tablet to him. He took it and looked at the picture she had pulled up. She knew what had caught his attention. It was the same thing that had caught hers. Andy Diggle's picture was framed by a dossier of his history - a history of hurting people, for H.I.V.E. He had worked for them.

It was all there, clear as day.

"No," Diggle emphatically stated as Oliver took the tablet from him. Oliver's jaw twitched, and then his eyes softened. She saw sympathy, empathy, and that same deep sadness she had noticed in him all the time now.

"Diggle," Oliver tried to console him.

"No!" Diggle hissed. "No way. Not Andy."

"John," Oliver said more firmly.

Heather took the tablet from Oliver last, using his distraction with Diggle to take it away from him. "I've seen him before," she muttered to Felicity after a moment of frowning thoughtfully at the picture.

Felicity was startled. She turned to give her friend her full attention, her thumbnail between her teeth again as she considered her.

"He was with Rose, my friend. I only talked to him for a minute. He was nice. He didn't make fun of me even though I had raspberry jam all down my front...long story," Heather said.

"That could be good," Felicity said.

"How is that good?" Diggle demanded angrily.

"Rose was trying to collect evidence on H.I.V.E. Maybe she got your brother to help her," Felicity said. "Maybe he was trying to do the right thing."

Diggle was slowly scrolling through Andy's file. "After he killed people. Professionally. For money."

Felicity cut her eyes over to Heather. She couldn't go into detail about their extracurricular activities, but she had a point to make. "People are more than they seem on paper, Digg," she said.

Diggle pushed the tablet back into her hands and slowly stood. He looked a bit unsteady on his feet, but he was determined. He limped out of the room without saying anything else, clearly needing time to process.

"Who is he?" Heather asked, pointing at Andy's picture.

"Brother," Felicity.

"That's rough," Heather said.

"Yeah," Felicity agreed.

Heather looked between Oliver and Felicity curiously. Felicity knew Heather could sense the tension between them. The dead could probably sense the tension between her and Oliver. She imagined a long dead skeleton sighing in exasperation at their awkwardness and nearly smiled. Then she thought of Diggle and what he was going through. She wanted to help him. She needed more information. She needed to narrow her focus. She had to find a way to get Diggle answers and give Heather her life back. Ignoring Heather's obvious curiosity about the tension, Felicity sat on the bed and went to work.

"Searching for information?" Heather asked a minute later.

"Yes," Felicity agreed absently.

"Spare tablet?" Heather asked.

Felicity gestured towards her bags in the corner of the room. Heather took the hint and rifled through them for a minute before finally finding what she was after. She sat down next to Felicity, sitting cross-legged with her back against the headboard, looking the picture of ease. Felicity smiled gratefully at her friend's help and kept her eyes glued to the screen.

Oliver hovered, hesitated, and otherwise made the tension in the room swirl, breathe, and sizzle. She refused to look up at him, to see him bristling about them deciding to dig deeper into H.I.V.E. despite his words. They were ignoring him, and he did not like to be ignored. He liked things to be his way all the time. He could not stop the shift in power that was sweeping through Felicity, Diggle, Roy, and even Laurel. He didn't fidget or do any of the things other men might have to bring her attention back to him, but she did feel his eyes burning into her skin. Finally, he decided the only thing he could do was follow Diggle and help his friend cope with the pain of a brother that was not what he had thought him to be.

The door swept over the cheap carpet before the lock engaged once more.

"Remember when I pointed out the sexual tension between you two?" Heather asked without looking at Felicity. "Times that by about a million."

"I don't want to talk about it," Felicity muttered, her eyes also remaining on her work.

"What happened that got you two so...worked up?" Heather asked, ignoring her.

"Nothing," Felicity said.

"Because he was staring at you like you he wanted to simultaneously rip your clothes off and ravage you and personally manhandle you onto a plane back to Starling."

"It's not like there would be something to tell about us," Felicity said, not really paying her friend any attention. "That would involve actual progress...That would involve communication."

"Manhandled is such a sexist word, but, god, do I love it sometimes. Do you remember me telling you about Seth? He was manhandler, when I let him be one, I mean. It was incredibly sexy. I have feeling Oliver could be very hot while manhandling. Of course, he's hot while looking at things and doing nothing. It's kinda unfair."

"If he would get over himself and actually act like his happiness matters, like he's not just waiting for the inevitable to take him away from me..."

"No, I bet he's more the soft type. Gentle caresses, delicate kisses, soft touches..." Heather mused, her lips pursed thoughtfully.

"Please stop describing," Felicity said with a grimace.

"Seriously...What's up?" Heather asked.

"His usual crap. I really just want to focus on this," Felicity said. "We can talk about it later."

"Kay," Heather agreed.

There was silent for awhile as they worked through their thoughts on how to get answers. Heather didn't have Felicity's skill or expertise with computers, but she was skilled enough. She was smart and Felicity trusted she was following workable leads.

"Am I simply not desirable?" Felicity asked after a couple of minutes, her eyebrows lowering into a concerned frown.

"If I were into girls, I would take you here and now," Heather said immediately.

Felicity laughed. "Thanks." She paused. "I'm just not desirable enough to actual want on a full-time basis, I guess."

"Ray seems to be thinking along those lines."

"Ray is nice," Felicity said.

"Nice is good," Heather said carefully.

"You always have opinions," Felicity muttered.

"Yes," Heather replied.

"Spill," Felicity said.

"Ray could be good," Heather said. "He'd commit, you'd commit, and everything would be peachy. But..." she shrugged her shoulders as she contemplated Felicity with Ray, "it wouldn't be the same thing you feel for Oliver."

"I know," Felicity said. "But at least I would have someone who wanted to be with me."

"There is that," Heather replied. She wrinkled her nose. "Are you tired of talking about boys?"

"I didn't bring it up," Felicity said.

"Are you sure?" Heather said.

"Hush," Felicity said.

The continued to work on their possible leads for another hour. Oliver and Diggle didn't come back. Felicity assumed they were either getting in a massive fight or sharing a drink. It was their typical way of working through situations. It didn't seem healthy, but men were men. There was no understanding the complexity of their antiquated emotional rituals.

"I think I've found something," Heather said, finally breaking the silence.

"Yeah, me too," Felicity said.

Heather and Felicity looked at each other, and then promptly switched tablets to see what the other had found. Felicity flipped through the data, growing more excited by the second.

"Oh, this is good," Felicity gushed.

"No, this is better," Heather said. "You're a genius."

"We can share genius credit," Felicity decided.

"Good," Heather replied with a small smile.

"You should let me do the talking," Felicity said as she put Heather's findings and hers together in her mind.

"Happily," Heather replied calmly.

 

"Are you okay?" Felicity asked Diggle the moment he stepped back into her room.

He shrugged and didn't try to answer her question. She took that as a bad sign. Of course he wasn't okay, but she didn't know if that translated into him being completely ready to turn into a one man army and smack down H.I.V.E., or if that meant he was simply freaking out about his brother being an assassin.

She took a deep breath and focused on the facts instead of Oliver Queen's stupid face as he closed the door behind Diggle and leaned against it, unwilling to come deeper into the room. He was giving her the puppy dog eyes again. It made her want to kiss the pain away.

"Heather and I found some interesting things," Felicity said. "Heather focused her search on Rose and Andy, trying to link them to anything useful. She found someone."

Felicity held up the tablet for Diggle to see. On it was a woman's face. She was intimidating, fierce, and looked to be around Diggle's age. She could definitely give Amanda Waller a run for her money. In front of her, looking stoic, was Andy Diggle.

"Her name is Adeline Kane," Felicity said. "I can't find a lot about her, other than the fact that she is very, weirdly, squeaky clean. Her history is perfect, and if it's not real, I can't find the hack that created it. Heather thinks that she might be the person Klinger and the others were waiting on, which means she might be in town, and she's definitely higher up on the food chain than Klinger was. I focused my search on Klinger's movements in Bangkok after the plane touched down. He went two places - the building he was holding Heather and a different building across town."

She held the tablet up again to show them the building.

She returned it to its natural state of being in front of her a second later. "I also focused on filtering out any companies that are connected to H.I.V.E. through the database Heather and Rose managed to set up. One came up...It's a biotech lab, and it's in that building."

"So the building is our lead?" Diggle asked.

"I tried to hack their mainframe," Felicity said. "They have really, really - did I say really? - good firewalls. I'd have to be inside to hack it. And there's no guarantee that they'll have the information we need on Andy. If I were a super shady super villain group, I wouldn't keep stuff written down."

"Adeline Kane will have what we need," Diggle said darkly.

"What? You gonna abduct her and beat the answers out of her?" Felicity asked.

Diggle's expression suggested he was thinking about it. It freaked her out to no end to see Diggle acting so Oliver-like and Oliver acting so Diggle-like. She wondered if she had stumbled into a freaky alternate universe.

"So, what's the plan here?" Heather asked.

Felicity coughed uncomfortably. "I think it's time you got somewhere safe."

"You're not kicking me out," Heather retorted. "No way."

"Yeah," Felicity said. She gestured at Diggle and Oliver. "We've got this whole...whatever covered."

"Rose was my best friend," Heather said. "I'm not walking away. You can't make me."

"I'm not suggesting you walk away...just trust me to handle it," Felicity said.

"You need to work on your definition of walking away," Heather said scornfully.

"Tell me about it," Felicity muttered. She gestured at Diggle. "Digg knows someone who works in the military. She might be able to provide a safe house or..." Felicity trailed away at the look on Diggle's face.

Oliver had noticed it as well. "What?" Oliver asked.

"I didn't tell Lyla," Diggle admitted.

"Come again?" Felicity said.

"I told her we had something to take care of, but I didn't..."

"Why?" Felicity asked.

"I just didn't...It's complicated," Diggle said.

"Didn't you think that maybe she would know something?" Felicity asked. "A.R.G.U.S. knows everything."

"Why don't you ask her what she knows?" Diggle demanded, pointing at Heather. "She's the one who's working for them!"

"Most of what I know came from Rose's files. I was working my way into their trust before they caught me," Heather said heatedly. "And I would have spoken up if I knew something relevant by now."

"How were you contacted?" Felicity asked.

"Carrier pigeon," Heather said angrily.

"Heather..."

Heather sighed and some of her tension melted away. "It was always someone different. The routines were different, the messages were different. Nothing was ever the same. They didn't let me establish any patterns," Heather said. She turned to Felicity, agitated and fierce. "You can't push me out, not now. Let me stay."

Felicity recognized the emotion in Heather's voice. It was the same emotion she had in hers when trying to get Oliver to let her in on a mission. She knew that if she was in Heather's place she would be irritated at the inherent undertones of over-protectiveness and the sense that she wasn't capable.

Felicity looked to Diggle first, then Oliver. Diggle shrugged, still too lost in his personal hell to care about Heather. Oliver was frowning. He clearly didn't want a civilian tagging along - especially one they had flown thousands of miles to rescue. Then, his expression cleared and he gave her a look that was trusting and sincere. He was pointing the choice in her hands. He was letting her make the call. Her heart started beating faster at the implicit trust in the gesture.

"Okay," Felicity said, deciding that Heather had a right to be there. "Now, let's figure a way into this building...and a way to find out where Adeline Kane is currently lurking."

"We can't just waltz in," Diggle said. "We tried that. They knew who we were the second we stepped inside."

"So, we break in," Felicity said.

"Only we can't cut the videos or security from the outside," Diggle replied. "You said so yourself."

"I remember," Felicity said. "If there was an access vent or...something on the outside, I could crawl inside and hack the video feed long enough for us to get to the server and get my hands on their data."

"Okay," Oliver said.

Felicity frowned at him, a question in her eyes.

He shrugged. "I can get you in," he said.

Her frown turned to an expression of surprise.

"What happened to sneaking in being a bad idea?" Diggle asked.

"It _is_ a bad idea. A really bad idea," Felicity said. "But I can't see it as being a worse idea than my last idea, which nearly got us all killed."

"You sure do know how to sell a plan," Heather said.

"It's a gift," Felicity said. She started taping on her tablet, bringing up the blueprints to the building and checking on the facial recognition she was running on Adeline Kane.

"I'll find us a way in," Oliver said, turning abruptly and leaving the room.

Diggle jumped up and hurried after him, shaking his head in exasperation at Oliver's brusqueness. Felicity rolled her eyes in agreement and focused on the building, looking for all the likely spots they would have placed a server. From the cooling panels and wiring, she realized it was on the fifteenth floor, in the heart of the building. That would entail a whole lot of sneaking. She didn't know if she was capable.

"I think I'm going to focus on boss-lady Adeline Kane," Heather said. "I know you don't need any help being awesome, but I can't just sit here and do nothing."

"Okay," Felicity said absently. She paused. "Rose never mentioned her to you?"

"Rose didn't mention a lot. She was pretty closed off about the past, the present, a lot things, really."

"What kind of stuff did H.I.V.E. have you do for them?" Felicity asked.

"Not awesome stuff," Heather said. "I'm not proud of what I've done. And it was all for nothing. I didn't any closer to them. You've managed to get closer to them in twenty-four hours than I have in years."

"You did your best," Felicity said.

"Yeah, but I'm not you," Heather said.

Felicity allowed herself a smile, feeling proud that despite the topsy-turvy present, she was still kicking ass - metaphorically and technologically speaking, of course. All the literal ass kicking belonged to Diggle and Oliver.

An hour later, the two men in question returned. Both looked restless and irritable. Oliver stood near the door again as Diggle sat on the bed.

"We found a way in," Diggle said. "You're not gonna like it."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things:
> 
> Writing H.I.V.E. a bunch of time sucks. Periods. All the periods in the acronym. Seething hate. Screw you, periods.
> 
> Secondly, I'm editing a real book for the real world right now. I will do my best-est to stay updated on here in a timely manner, but there might be some delays. Forgive me?
> 
> P.S. I love you.


	7. Data Retrieval 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity and Oliver have some close times, some trust realizations, and Diggle makes a costly mistake.

Air conditioning ducts were stupid. They weren't just stupid - they were ridiculous. Worse, they didn't even know it. They just sat there, being stupid and ridiculous, without a care in the world. It was frustrating.

Or maybe it was the fact that she was trapped in one with Oliver Queen, ass-hat extraordinaire. He kept brushing against her and looking stupidly attractive in his black shirt, blue jeans, and black hat. She was similarly dressed, but she felt like she didn't carry the look nearly as well. It didn't help that he was in front of her and she had an amazing view of his butt. The distraction was entirely what she did not need in the middle of one of the scariest missions she had ever gone on.

"If I had known I would be on my knees this long I would have brought knee pads," Felicity said, needing to talk to ease the tension she felt in her chest. The return silence was deafening. She realized the connotations of her words with a small jump. She kept talking to cover the moment. "Of course, I shouldn't really complain, I guess, because I'm here and not waiting in a smelly van that may or may not be stolen."

"Be glad, be very glad," Diggle murmured in her ear, cutting her a break.

"It smells like nachos and feet in here," Heather added.

"You like nachos," Felicity said.

"Not three-day-old nachos, I don't," Heather replied.

"Status report," Oliver said, ending the conversation. She noticed a slight reddening from his ears that she could only attribute to her awkward innuendo.

"Still nothing. The building is quiet," Diggle said.

"We need to crawl faster," Felicity said. "I mean, it's the dead of night, surely we don't need to be overly stealthy."

Oliver grunted in response and didn't increase his pace.

"The guards went on their patrol twenty minutes ago. If we don't hurry, one of them is going to catch us when we're in the server room," she added.

"It'll take as long as it takes," Oliver said.

"This must be what hell feels like," she grumbled.

"This was your idea," Oliver retorted.

"I'm not complaining about the mission. I love missions. Go team."

There was a long pause.

"So. Me?" Oliver asked.

"Could we not?" Felicity asked.

"I'm sorry," Oliver said.

"Maybe if you'd get your head out of your ass you could stop apologizing to her and give her what she really wants," Heather said.

There was a chuckle followed by a whispered conversation on the other end of the comms.

"I'm talking about sex," Heather added unnecessarily.

"I'm thinking I should have never rescued you," Felicity complained.

Oliver was impossibly, totally, agonizingly quiet. The only sounds coming from him were the ones his hands and knees made from crawling. Felicity was busy blushing from her toes to the crown of her head - partly from anger, but also because Heather's suggestion was incredibly appealing to her and she hated herself for it.

They continued to crawl through the ducts in mostly silence, Oliver following Felicity's directions as she occasionally checked her tablet and the blueprints she had downloaded. They finally came to a large intersection and Oliver stopped, leaning back to sit and look at her. The good news was that his butt was no longer tempting her, but she still had to look at his stupidly attractive face.

"We need to go up," Felicity stated, her eyes roving around the cramped space in an attempt to look anywhere but at Oliver. Oliver shifted slightly and Felicity turned enough to see him looking up. She followed his gaze and instantly saw what he had in mind. One of the ducts went straight up, cutting through the building. "I can't crawl up that," she pointed out.

Oliver pointed at the rope he had insisted on bringing with them. It was slung around his body in neat coils.

"That doesn't solve the problem of us being down here," she said, trying to figure out if she was being so difficult because of the proximity to him or because he had given her another, "It's not you, it's me," speech.

He arched an eyebrow at her in a challenge. Then, he stood and fluidly started climbing up the duct. His movements were cat-like and confident. She grumbled under her breath, throwing several insults at him that questioned his intellect, his breeding, and his desire to continue living. A ghostly chuckle floated down to her, but it was whipped away almost as quickly as it came. Finally the gentle sounds of him climbing stopped. She looked up again, waiting. A second later, the end of the rope unraveled above her - and promptly hit her in the face.

"Ouch," she complained.

"Coming?" Oliver returned.

She decided silence was the best approach to the situation. It would serve no one to yell at him now. They still had a server to break into and a scary woman to track down and possibly kill - if Diggle had anything to do with it, which he did. She grabbed the rope, feeling a bit like she was back in gym class and everyone was about to laugh at her and her lack of upper body strength, and tried to climb up. She didn't get very far before the rope started moving upwards. She yelped quietly, grabbed the rope harder reflexively, and then felt her anger surge again. He had started pulling her up, not trusting her to climb on her own. It was simultaneously sweet, attractive that he could lift her so easily, and irritating. She didn't know which emotion had her feeling angry.

Oliver pulled her up far quicker than she had thought possible. He helped her climb over the edge of the duct he was perched on, his hands landing around her waist as she crawled next to him. She scowled at him even as she tried really hard not to smile at the touch.

She was such an idiot - a genius and incredibly gifted, but an idiot nonetheless.

He didn't immediately release her. He let his hands linger, almost like he was trying to memorize the way she felt against him. She closed her eyes, wishing he didn't have to pull such moments out of their interactions together like they were a prayer or the moment of a dying man. She wished it could be their normal, their everyday. It could be if he would stop pushing her away.

When her eyes opened, she moved away from him, deliberately crawling in the direction her trusty tablet told her to go. She heard him pull the rope up the rest of the way and gather it around his body again. It was his turn to crawl behind her. She hoped he suffered the same way she had. And if she swished her hips more than necessary as she crawled, it was only because he deserved it.

She finally stopped and looked at the grate to her right. She checked her tablet to be sure. She leaned forward, listening to the familiar sounds of technology for a second before she nodded in satisfaction.

"This is it," she whispered.

She shifted slightly so Oliver could look down as well. His thigh and arm brushed against hers, but he didn't seem to notice as he stared down at the room.

"Looks empty," he said.

He promptly pushed back the grate and jumped down, landing noiselessly. He held out his hands for Felicity to follow. She gulped, but scooted to the edge of the duct and let her feet dangle over. She knew, despite the tension between them, that he would catch her. Her fear faded quickly. She let herself fall. The rush of wind and the pull of gravity surrounded her, then his hands wrapped around her. Her hands ended up on his chest, and his hands ended up around her waist. She took a deep breath, glad that she hadn't broken anything, and looked up. He was close and breathing heavily. Her hands felt every rise and fall of his chest. He was looking down at her with a spark in his eyes that made her think he was remembering their kiss. She shook off the thought, knowing she was being silly, and took a step back. She allowed herself to become distracted by the technology surrounding her.

"Oh!" she said eagerly. "They have some seriously pretty gear in here." She pointed at a black box. "That's supposed to be in the developmental stages."

"They clearly have resources," Oliver said.

"Clearly," she repeated, more to try to ease away from the memory of him holding her so tightly and warmly. It had felt right. She was tired of how right it felt to be around him when he didn't want her in that way. She was only good to him for her specific skill set. Computers. Not anything else, which was a shame.

The server room was not large. The servers were crammed in the space in neat rows so that there were very few places to move. She had to carefully maneuver around Oliver - their chests touching - to get to a port. She plugged in her tablet and a thumb drive and started working. Code started scrolling across the screen.

"They have some protocols in place. It's going to take me a sec.," Felicity said.

"I'll keep an eye on the door," Oliver said.

She heard occasional updates from Diggle and Heather, as well as some whispered conversations on their end, and Oliver's breathing, but everything else was unbelievably quiet. She broke through the protocols in place to protect the data in under a minute and started the download.

Her eyes wandered over to Oliver as she waited. He was jammed between two shelves and looking out through the tiniest of cracks at the door. He was in work mode, completely at ease with the tension and uncertainty. He did not have her jitters. She took comfort in the idea that he was with her even though things were so unsettled between them. He would always look out for her, and she him.

"What?" Oliver asked, his eyes not moving from the door.

"What?" Felicity said far too quickly.

"I can feel you staring at me."

"I wasn't staring," Felicity said.

"Mmhh," he replied, pressing his lips together to keep from pointing out that, yes, she had been totally staring.

She shrugged one shoulder, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. "I'm just glad that you're here. In here. With me. Protecting me from the evil organization out to destroy the world."

His eyes finally moved away from the door. They found hers. He was surprised. She shrugged again, trying to downplay the post-hack epiphany that had flooded through her. Oliver's eyes didn't leave hers. Blue cut into blue with vivid passion. She saw a thousand things he was longing to say, none of them a goodbye. She wished he would get around to having his own epiphany.

"Why a biochem lab, though?" Heather's voice cut through the moment. "Why would they have servers there of all places?"

Felicity turned away from Oliver slowly, blinking rapidly to get her thoughts away from the warmth of his stare and the way her body was tingling, and focused on the question.

"It's a front," she replied. "Their enemies go to the building Oliver blew up and not here where the real data is. They aren't as good as we are, though."

"Maybe," Heather said. "Or else this is another..."

"That's her," Diggle said, interrupting her.

There was some rustling of clothes, Heather protesting, and a door slamming.

"Adeline Kane just showed up," Heather said, sounding breathless. "And Mr. Diggle just took off after her."

"Digg!" Oliver growled.

"John?" Felicity questioned.

Diggle's line didn't go dead, but the silence was profound.

"Digg!" Oliver said louder, the struggle between staying with Felicity and going to Diggle playing across his face.

"Just go!" Felicity said.

"I'm not going to leave you here," Oliver said.

"He's in danger. I'm not," Felicity said. "I'll go back through the vents."

As she spoke, gunfire peppered the line. Felicity jumped. "Go!" she hissed at Oliver.

He hesitated, his hand clenching, then he shot her a look that told her he would do everything in his power to get back to her. She smiled at him reassuringly, and he disappeared around the corner of the door. She moved away from the servers and went to the door to keep an eye out. Oliver was already gone. She realized that she could help him. She went back to her tablet and worked on hacking the security in the building.

"Oh, your security system is so cute," Felicity said. "It's like you're actually trying."

She killed the system with a push of a button. The gunfire abruptly switched to shouting and confusion as Oliver appeared on the screen. They were sounds she was intimately familiar with, though Heather swearing like a sailor was new. Felicity kept reassuring her and urging her to stay in the van. Heather paused in her swearing only long enough to tell Felicity that she was not about to jump into the fight.

Felicity's tablet beeped at her. The download was finished. She pulled the cord out of the server and rushed back to the vent they had come through. She stared at it in consternation. It was way too high for her to reach without a little help.

As she contemplated climbing up the delicate machinery - her heart aching against such a blasphemous act - she heard the sounds in her earwig change. Heather started whispering softly, fear in ever syllable.

"I think they've been taken."

"Taken?" Felicity repeated, zeroing in on the grunts and the fact that a woman was issuing commands.

"They're being dragged inside right now," Heather said.

"We have to help them," Felicity said.

Heather sucked in a deep breath, clearly frightened, but when she spoke, her voice was even. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need a distraction," Felicity said.

"I think I can manage that," Heather said.

"I'll let you know when," Felicity said.

She focused on her tablet again, scrolling through the cameras placed throughout the building. Her heart started racing when she saw Adeline Kane and five goons in the lobby of the building, Oliver and Diggle on their knees in front of them. Adeline sent the security guards scurrying with a snap of her fingers. They left without saying a word. They were clearly on her payroll.

Felicity slipped around the door as she continued to watch the camera with Oliver and Diggle on one half of the screen and searched through all of the security measures, tech, and schematics of the building on the other half. She was in the stairwell when she found what she was looking for, her mind connecting the dots easily. She made a sound of triumph that startled her slightly around the silence of the building, and she heard Oliver grunt. She had startled him as well. She didn't hear anything from Diggle. She knew he was awake - she could seem him glaring up at Adeline Kane. He was too focused on his hate to give any other noises much consideration.

"Oliver Queen, is it?" Adeline said, her voice smooth and confident. "Never thought I'd meet the castaway in person. I'm honored, really. What are you doing attacking my people, attacking me?"

"He has nothing to do with this," Diggle said.

Adeline's eyes switched to him. "I don't know you."

"You knew my brother," Diggle said. "You or someone who works for you had him killed."

"Boring," Adeline said. "I hate revenge stories. They're always so...whiny. What is interesting to me is how you knew to come here. How did you know?"

Felicity's fingers were still in motion. The top three levels were completely off the grid and the security was intense. There was nothing to suggest that anything was there, but she knew better. The security and the power coming from the floors were more than most high-rises combined.

She locked all the doors down on the three levels, and then crashed every single cell phone in the building. The only communication lines she left up was the one their comms operated on and Adeline's phone. She then wormed her way into the computers on the super-secure level and sent a gigantic virus into their mainframe. Then, feeling a bit smug, she called Adeline's number, hurrying down the steps, the floor numbers flashing past her. She knew that there was a very real chance she would be stopped by security, but Oliver and Diggle had her willing to take the risk.

Adeline's cell phone rang out. Felicity watched on her tablet as the woman stopped pacing in front of Diggle and Oliver and pulled the phone out of her bag. She stared at the unknown number, her eyes flickering up to Oliver suspiciously.

"You should probably get that," Oliver said. "We'll wait."

The man standing directly behind Oliver with a pistol to his head nudge him slightly with the barrel, a warning to drop his sassy tone. Felicity's eyes narrowed and she came to a halt, slowing her breathing as Adeline finally lifted the phone to her ear.

"Who is this?" Adeline said.

"Hi," Felicity said. "Just wanted to let you know that your super-secret lair on the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second floors are now dealing with two problems - no one can get in or out of the level and a major virus is erasing a whole bunch of data that's probably pretty important."

"How-?" Adeline stilled, pushing her anger down. "What do you want?"

"I think it's pretty obvious," Felicity said. "Release the two men you are currently holding at gun point - and I swear to god, if that man nudges Oliver one more time with his pistol I will ruin him - and promise me that you will leave a friend of mine alone, and I will restore everything, good as new."

"Which friend is that?"

"Heather Fox," Felicity said.

"Ah," Adeline said, gesturing the man who had nudged Oliver away.

"So, do we have a deal?" Felicity asked.

"I know quite a bit about the security of this building," Adeline said. "I know that it is impossible to hack from the inside. So that tells me you are somewhere inside. It also tells me that I can find you and make you undo what you have done."

"Not likely," Felicity said, trying to sound braver than she felt.

"Have you ever been tortured?" Adeline asked. There was a pause. "I can tell from the reactions of your _friends_ that you have not. It can pull all sorts of secrets out of a person. No one can resist it forever."

"And how long do you think H.I.V.E. can survive with me systematically destroying every piece of data I can find?" Felicity replied, though she had started moving again. She was eager to get to the bottom level and get ready for the distraction she knew was coming.

"Counter proposal," Adeline said sternly. She took a pistol from the man closest to her and held it up to Diggle. "Give yourself up and stop the virus, or I'll shoot him. It's better that way, really. He won't have to mourn his brother any longer. It'll be a kindness to him, really."

"You'll shoot him regardless," Felicity said.

"I am not playing games," Adeline said, some of her cool fading. She pulled the trigger and Diggle hit the ground. He clutched at his shoulder. Felicity jumped and came very close to calling out Diggle's name. She needed to be more stoic than that.

"Welp, I just wiped out the rest of the data on your servers. P.S., screw you."

Felicity hung up on Adeline and spoke to Heather. "Get ready for the distraction."

She reached the bottom level and carefully opened the door. She saw Oliver, his muscles bunching and releasing expectantly. He was ready to move. He would take full advantage of the distraction when it came.

"I'm ready," Heather said tightly.

"In three...two...one," Felicity said.

She slid out around the door as she heard tires squealing. Adeline was yelling at Oliver, demanding to know where Felicity was and for her to undo what she had done. A second later, the world turned to chaos. Felicity had been in the process of running forward. She stopped when glass, metal, and wood flew out toward the group standing in the lobby. Everyone ducked reflexively. The van followed the explosion a second later and came to a careening stop inches from one of the goons.

Oliver was already in motion. He had three of them down before they knew what was going on. Adeline turned the pistol on him, but her eyes rolled back in her head before she could do more than point it in his general direction. Heather grinned as Felicity caught sight of the Taser in her hand. Felicity smiled back in relief.

Oliver knocked out the last man and went to Diggle, who was struggling to sit. Oliver pulled him up and helped him to the van. He went back to Adeline and picked her up as well, almost as an after thought. He threw her into the back and gestured for Felicity and Heather to get inside. They climbed in and Oliver backed the van out of the building, the front end scraping over the ground slightly. Felicity was impressed the thing could still move at all. It had taken out most of the wall with it. With another screech of tires, they drove away from the building, the tense silence punctuated by Diggle's groans and Felicity's heavy breathing.

"I'm dead. This is what dying is," Heather said, a hand on her heart. "You've killed me."

"Tell me about it," Diggle said painfully.

Felicity moved over to him, putting her hand over the wound in an attempt to keep the blood on the inside. "We have to take him to the hospital."

"I'm fine," Diggle said.

"You were shot!" Felicity said.

"I'm taking you," Oliver said. "But someone should stay with him."

Heather looked between Felicity and Diggle for a second. "I'll stay. You guys will probably be busy with her." Her eyes lingered on Adeline.

"I'm not going to the damn hospital!" Diggle shouted.

Oliver's grip on the steering wheel tightened. His eyes raked the rearview mirror. Felicity realized he was looking at her. She also realized that he was looking for her opinion. While neither of them were happy that Diggle had rushed Adeline without backup, and had caused the hostage situation, they both knew where he was coming from and why he wasn't exactly thinking straight. He hadn't meant to get anyone hurt, but he saw getting to Andy's killers as his mission. He was too much a soldier to back away from a mission.

"Do you know any doctors in town who might be willing to make a house call?" Felicity asked Oliver.

Oliver slowly nodded and let out a deep, troubled breath. She knew that he would follow her lead. He would take them back to the hotel and find someone to help Diggle. He would figure it out, and she would help him. Her heart burned brightly with the knowledge that in this moment, when it really mattered, they were partners. Anger, sexual frustration, weird love triangle, and inability to step over his fear aside, Oliver and Felicity had something that very few people had so completely: trust.

She smiled sadly at him, feeling the anger ebb away. A chaotic sense of love filled its place. It was agonizing, sweet, and made her want to touch him, just to feel his warmth against hers and know that everything was going to be okay. She had to settle for pressing harder against Diggle's shoulder and hoping they got to the hotel in time to save her friend.

Before she looked away from him, Oliver graced her with a tired smile - more for her benefit than his. She smiled back, hoping he took what he needed from it, and focused her thoughts on ways to get Adeline Kane to leave Heather alone and solve the mystery of who had sent Deadshot to kill Andrew Diggle.


	8. Barriers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not dead...in case you were wondering. Got my book edited on round one, so that's fun! Anyways, summary.
> 
> Felicity and co. interrogate Adeline Kane, Felicity decides to explore the city and, of course, Oliver tags along, and someone makes a confession they were not expecting. This one is a bit more fluff, a little less action.
> 
> Thanks for your continued awesomeness.

Felicity paced in the hall. She was wondering how it was that she had spent more time in the hall of the hotel than her actual room. She tapped her thumb nail against her front two bottom teeth and did everything in her power to keep her eyes off of Oliver, who was not hiding the fact that he was watching her intently.

Heather stood a little ways away from them, looking tired, dejected, and just a little bit confused. Oliver was deathly still, his arms crossed in front of his body, his posture screaming 'Arrow.' He was ready for violence. The woman currently tied up and unconscious in his room told Felicity that he may very well get what he wanted.

But they weren't hovering outside of Oliver's room. They were hovering outside of Diggle's, waiting to hear what the doctor Oliver had found had to say about Diggle's injury. It had been an hour. Oliver had left Adeline to stew in the room, tying her to the chair, a blindfold and gag on her face. It wasn't Felicity's first kidnapping of a bad guy, but she was more nervous than she had ever been. She had dumped the data on the computers at the foundry, and her programs were mining through the information, but it would take a while to get what she needed from it. They wouldn't know Adeline's true capacity to hurt them or how far her people were willing to go to get them back until it was too late. She did not like feeling that she was missing something. It worried her almost as much as the fact that Diggle had been shot.

"He's going to be fine," Oliver said into the silence as Felicity continued to pace.

She continued to scrape her nail along her teeth and glared at him.

"He will be," Oliver continued gently, reaching out for her as she passed him. She dodged his touch, knowing it would keep her from thinking straight when her emotions were so fractured. His hand fell limply to his side.

"I've never rammed a building with a van before," Heather interjected, probably to keep the tension in the hall from exploding the hotel. It was self-preservation, really. "It was two parts terrifying and one part exciting. Is that a natural response to ramming a building with a van?"

"Maybe?" Felicity replied.

"Yes," Oliver said at the same time.

Heather and Felicity turned to look at Oliver, wanting the story behind his agreement. He merely shrugged and looked at Diggle's door anxiously.

"It might be a while before they're done in there. Do you think we should question Kane now?" Oliver asked Felicity, his eyes returning to her face.

She finally stopped pacing, her hand finally falling away from her mouth. She blinked rapidly to clear her shock. It felt like so long since he had asked her opinion on something that really mattered. Sure, he asked about technology and tracking people, but not about the interpersonal things in their group. He had spent so much time stomping his way through situations and ignoring what she thought that she felt like he no longer wanted to know what she thought about anything.

"He'll want to hear what she has to say," Felicity decided. "It won't feel real unless he does."

Oliver nodded, and his eyes dropped to the carpet as he considered the conversation he planned on having with Adeline. Felicity didn't start pacing again like her body told her to. Instead, she leaned against the wall next to him, allowing herself to take in his warmth and steadiness. Even when everything around him was chaos, he exuded a steady sense of calm. It helped her to take a deep breath and focus on the next step. He shifted ever so slightly, so that his arm was pressed against hers. She was not the only one looking to take strength from the closeness. She pressed back, not shying away from him as she had done moments ago, his question knocking down one of her invisible barriers.

The doctor walked out thirty minutes later. She nodded at Oliver perfunctorily, then left without a word. So, not friends, then. Oliver was first to the door. He pushed it back and Felicity heard Diggle's voice urging them all inside. He was pale and wrapped up in the comforter from the bed to mitigate the shivers that wracked his body, but he looked better. Though his eyes were a little unfocused, he was present and ready to talk about Adeline.

"Where is she?" Diggle asked as soon as Heather closed the door.

"My room," Oliver replied.

"Have you talked to her?" Diggle asked.

"No. We wanted to wait for you," Oliver said.

Diggle pushed away the comforter, his arms prickling with goose bumps but his stance wide and determined, and immediately swayed. Oliver caught his arm and Diggle nodded to show that he was okay. Oliver pulled his hand away, but he perched near Diggle's arm like a bird of prey, ready to jump in at the slightest hint of a fall. Felicity smiled at Diggle, her lips lifting tremulously. She was a little mad at him, for rushing in when staying in the van would have kept them all safe, but she was far more glad that he was okay.

"I'm sorry," Diggle said to her, like she was the only person in the room. Maybe it was because he felt like she was the only one who needed the apology.

"I get it," Felicity replied. "I don't like it, but I get it." She took a step forward and touched his arm. "Just promise me that you'll be the Diggle I know in that room...promise me to remember who you are."

Diggle hesitated, and she saw his anger and need for revenge, then he nodded, his eyes landing back on hers. She smiled at him again and turned back to Heather. Heather was watching them seriously, her eyes darkened by her own thoughts of revenge. Before Felicity could say anything, Heather turned and marched through the door. The others followed her to Oliver's room. Oliver stopped Heather from going in first with a firm headshake. She stepped back reluctantly and he pushed the door open confidently. They filed in after them, Diggle leaning against the door while Felicity and Heather hovered near the bed.

Adeline was sitting in the only chair. She was in the center of the room and her wrists was tied to the armrest. A pillowcase was over her head and she was breathing deeply. Oliver removed the hood with a quick snap of his wrist but Adeline didn't respond.

"Is she still unconscious?" Felicity asked.

"No...I think she's asleep," Oliver said.

"Asleep?" Felicity asked.

Oliver's eyebrows narrowed and he nudged Adeline's chair with his foot. She blinked awake and looked at each of them in turn.

"Thank God," Adeline said lazily. "I got so bored I decided to take a nap. I should actually thank you...been a bit short on sleep lately. Work, you understand."

"Did you have something to do with Andrew Diggle's murder?" Oliver asked without any preamble.

Adeline sighed.

"Or Rose Gillian..." Heather added.

Adeline's eyes moved to Heather. They narrowed. Oliver tensed and Felicity thought she knew why. Heather was the weak link in the group. She didn't know how to keep her thoughts or actions to herself in such a high-pressure situation. Adeline would take advantage of her emotions to escape if she could. It's what Oliver would have done had the situation been reversed.

"Rose...I remember her. She was a true artist when it came to her kills, took real pleasure in the gore. Pity she couldn't continue her work," Adeline said.

Heather didn't tremble or rage. She didn't even deny it. She just looked at Adeline with an expression Felicity was half convinced could melt steel.

"Answer the question," Oliver said, stepping between Heather and Adeline.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Adeline said coldly.

"We know H.I.V.E. had them killed. Who gave the order? Why?" Oliver asked.

Adeline simply smirked. Oliver tensed, but didn't look back at Felicity. She knew why. He was planning on getting the answers through violence, but he didn't want an audience. He was seconds away from asking her to leave.

"Can I have the room?" Heather asked before he could.

Everyone turned to stare at her. Even Adeline looked surprised.

"Just for a minute," Heather added, not looking perturbed by the stares or the skepticism.

"I don't..." Oliver started to say, but Felicity put her hand on his arm.

"Yeah," Felicity said.

She pulled him away from Adeline and gestured for Diggle to open the door. He hesitated, but he trusted Felicity's instincts implicitly. They stepped out into the hall and Felicity pulled her tablet out. She watched the progress of the data mining she was doing on the computers back at the foundry anxiously. The information she had pulled off the H.I.V.E. servers would take a while to go through. She wished for it to hurry. She wanted to gain answers the tried and true way, without having to torture anyone. Data had never let her down. It was not like people. It didn't lie or manipulate. It simply was.

Oliver got as close to the door as he could without pressing his ear to the metal and listened. Diggle shifted impatiently. Felicity didn't hear anything. It was eerily silent on the other side.

A minute after they had stepped into the hall, the door opened again. Heather gestured them inside. Adeline was sweating bullets and her ears were darting around the room nervously.

"Andrew Diggle and Rose Gillian were killed because they got in the way of a project H.I.V.E. is developing," Adeline announced immediately, her eyes on Heather. "It's called Infinity. They tried to stop it. They failed. My colleague ordered their deaths when their treachery was discovered."

"Name?" Diggle barked.

"Damian Darhk."

"Where is he now?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know. He's never in the same city for longer than a few months. He prefers to stay in touch online," Adeline said.

Diggle's face was livid. "How can we trust a word she says?"

"We can trust her," Heather said darkly.

"We can verify once my program mines through all the data," Felicity added. "Hopefully."

"I remember Andy, too," Adeline said, her eyes landing on Diggle. "He didn't have Rose's enjoyment. He was more mechanical. But he was good. You want to know how many people he killed? I could tell you. I could tell you all about their families and the way he made them suffer."

Diggle pulled out his pistol and pointed it at Adeline, a muscle twitching under his eye. His finger was on the trigger. Despite his certainty, Felicity knew he would never shoot her. Adeline didn't even flinch. She stared up at Diggle with angry eyes.

"I hope you find Damian," she spat. "He'll make quick work out of you...Just like Deadshot did your brother."

Diggle's finger actually twitched and Felicity inhaled sharply. Oliver was very still, though his eyes traveled between the pistol and Diggle's face in concern. He was willing to support Diggle, no matter the move he made. If Diggle killed her, he would clean up the body and hide the evidence. Felicity knew that Oliver hoped Diggle wouldn't do it, but he also had his back.

Diggle leaned forward and pistol whipped Adeline in the temple. The chair rocked and blood blossomed on Adeline's temple. Her chin dropped to her chest and Felicity knew she was not asleep this time. She was unconscious. Diggle stood over her, breathing heavily and glaring. Then, the anger seeped out of him and he turned to Oliver.

"Call A.R.G.U.S. They'll want to have a talk with her," Diggle said.

Oliver nodded but he had reservations. "Don't you think Lyla should know first?"

"I don't..." Diggle started to say.

"Digg..." Oliver chastised him gently.

"Fine. I'll make the call," Diggle said, his shoulders slumping. He walked out of the room, his good hand clutching his injured shoulder.

"So...what now?" Felicity asked.

"We wait for A.R.G.U.S. to pick her up," Oliver said.

"After that," Felicity said.

"We work on tracking Damian Darhk down," Oliver said.

"Back to Starling?" Felicity asked hopefully.

"Yes," Oliver said.

"That doesn't fix Heather's problem," Felicity pointed out. "H.I.V.E. will still come after her."

"She might have to go under A.R.G.U.S.'s protection," Oliver said.

"No, absolutely not," Heather said. Her eyes shone with anger and vehemence. There was no way on earth she would agree to go into hiding.

"I think I might have a way," Felicity said thoughtfully. "It involves blackmail and hope."

"That sounds scary," Heather said. "And awesome. Scary awesome?"

"Explain," Oliver said.

"You don't like words very much, do you?" Heather asked Oliver.

Felicity ignored her question. "I know that we nor A.R.G.U.S. can take down an organization like H.I.V.E. in a day. It's impossible. What we can do, however, is make sure they have a reason to stay away from us until we can go nuclear on their slimy asses. So I get in contact with one of their muckety-mucks and let it be known that I own all the data I stole from them and that my releasing it to every acronym with a badge, every enemy they've amassed over the years, and whoever else might be eager to know about them is dependent on them behaving."

"It might work," Oliver said.

"It's the only thing I've got, short of finding their main evil lair and hacking it to hell and back, which would be sort of fun if I didn't end up in another shoot out or kidnapping situation. I would definitely like to avoid anymore of those," Felicity said.

"I would like that, too," Oliver said.

Felicity shot him a surprised look, mainly because his tone was so laced with meaning and emotion. She quickly focused on Heather, who was reaching for the door. She wanted out of the room and away from Adeline and the emotions the woman caused in her. Felicity realized that she did too. She followed Heather to the hall, trusting Oliver to handle Adeline, and they went Felicity's room. Heather sat down on the bed and put her face in her hands.

"How'd you get her to talk so quickly?" Felicity asked from her place near the door.

Heather chuckled. "Adeline was aware of my background. I told her how many ways I could make her life unpleasant with things that were laying around the room. Then I described the effects of those things in great detail."

"You threatened her with science?" Felicity asked.

"I did," Heather said.

"I'm a little bit terrified but also incredibly impressed."

Heather smiled at the compliment, then her features fell again. "I have a name now. I know who killed Rose. Well, the person who ordered her death, anyways, but it doesn't feel like I'm any closer. I'm so far away from him and justice."

"We'll find him. I promise," Felicity said.

"It won't bring her back," Heather said.

"No," Felicity agreed. "But if it's important to you and Digg...if it helps even one of you move on and let go, I will storm my way twice around the world to make it happen."

Heather sighed, and then nodded gratefully. She leaned back and put her head on the pillow. Her eyes closed and her breathing slowly evened out. Felicity realized she must be exhausted. She had been through a lot in the past two days.

Felicity felt her own weariness in her bones, but she was far too wired to sleep. She took a quick shower, changed into a fresh dress, and pulled her tablet off the dresser. Clutching it, she walked into the hall in time to see Adeline Kane disappear with three armed guards at her back. Oliver stood at the door to outside, holding it open for them and then watching them drive off. Felicity felt some of her tension fade as Adeline walked left the building.

Good riddance to the woman. May she rot in hell.

Oliver let the door gently swing shut, and then turned. He caught Felicity's expression of relief and his lips ticked upwards. He stuck his hands in his pockets and Felicity realized that he seemed to be waiting, hoping, for her to say something. She could give him that.

"How much trouble is Digg in?" she asked lightly.

"I think a lot about covers it," Oliver said.

"Wouldn't want to be him," she said. "Lyla could kill him. Literally. Not that she would...She's one of the good guys."

"Yes," Oliver said.

Felicity smiled, and then decided that she really didn't want to be in the hotel any longer. She needed some air, some time to think about what they had learned and what she had to do to convince H.I.V.E. to leave her friend alone. She went to the end of the hall where Oliver, annoyingly, was still hovering by the door.

"Where are you going?" he asked as she reached for the door.

"Out," she said. "I need some fresh air and some time to think about the best way to approach H.I.V.E."

"I don't think it's a good idea to leave the hotel right now," he said.

"You think H.I.V.E. is waiting outside to kidnap me again?" she asked skeptically.

"Among other things," he said.

She shrugged and pushed the door open. "I'll take the chance."

"Wait," he said, holding his hand up.

"You can't actually make me stay," Felicity said.

"Yeah, I know," he said, his words full of regret. He scratched at his nose and looked past her, Oliver's patented ways of fidgeting. "Can I come with you?"

She stared at him - really stared. It was insanely awkward, but she didn't care. She couldn't see Oliver meandering. He was not a meanderer. He was a straight line kind of person. And she definitely planned on doing a lot of meandering until her brain felt clear again.

"It's late, it's dark out, and I don't want you walking around on your own," he added. "So you either go alone and I follow you, which is stupid, or you let me walk with you and I can show you some of the city."

She pursed her lips and looked down at the tablet in her arms to keep from looking at him. The idea of a walk with him was not totally abhorrent. It was somewhere between torturous and nice.

"Okay," she said. "But no brooding."

"What?" he demanded.

"No sighing, scowling, or acting like the world is caving in," she said. "Those are my terms."

"But I-"

"Nope," Felicity said. She held out her hand to him solemnly, wanting him to agree to the no brooding rule before they left.

His lips ticked slightly upwards again and he slowly slid his hand into hers, the pads of his fingers lingering on her palm before encircling her wrist. They shook once, then Felicity pulled her hand out of his, noticing that he wasn't going to pull away unless she did. She dropped the hand, wishing she could keep holding it, particularly after the near misses they'd suffered on the trip, and turned away from him swiftly.

The heat outside was tempered by the dark, but the humidity was relentless. She wryly thought that she should have skipped the shower as she started walking. The droplets of water that ran down her spine, between her breasts, and from her temple made her feel sticky and dirty. She would give anything for an a large fan to move the air around.

Oliver seemed unperturbed. He was always unperturbed. It was his luck and her curse. She swore at him in her mind and took pleasure from the beads of sweat that rolled down his face. Only then she imagined where else he was sweating and her thoughts went off the rails and into daydream territory. Stupid brain.

"The last time I was here, it was summer," Oliver said, breaking the silence.

She glanced over at him. His eyes were on her, watching her with far more interest than he did the darkened streets. She didn't know where this sudden warmth and need to speak to her was coming from, but she liked it - god help her. She told herself that it was because she wanted them to be friends. No matter what happened in the past, he was still insanely important to her. They needed to work through the weirdness and stop dancing around one another.

"I bet that was miserable. How did you not melt?" she asked.

He chuckled and tucked his hands into his pockets a bit awkwardly. Why on earth was the awkwardness so endearing?

"Are you hungry?"

Her stomach whined slightly at his words as if to say, "Why yes, I am currently being held hostage by a woman who has more brains than common sense. Please feed me."

"A little," Felicity said.

"There's a place around the corner from here. It doesn't look like much, but it's great."

"Okay," Felicity said with a shrug. Food would be good. She could go through some of the data over a meal and still be out of the hotel long enough to shake off the funk of the past few hours.

The shop Oliver took her to was tiny but crowded. A long counter took up most of the shop and small tables were packed near the front wall. Oliver ordered for them and Felicity let him, trusting him to know what she liked. She sat at a table near the wall and started scanning through information on her tablet absently. Oliver sat a few minutes later, gently sliding her tablet away and pushing her food towards her. She blinked and then smiled appreciatively.

She tried to look at her tablet three times, but every time she did, Oliver would give her a disapproving frown and nudge her food closer. She gave up and focused on his face, which was a mistake. He was still tense and tightly coiled. He couldn't be anything else in a city that he had a history in and was clearly itching to leave. Also, she was convinced that he thought they would be ambushed by H.I.V.E. at any second. But around the tension there was something else. It looked a lot like relief. She was not going to delve into the reason why.

"Is everything going okay at work?" Oliver asked casually.

He refused to call it Palmer Tech. She didn't blame him.

She nodded and went into a long gush about the advances they were making, the clean energy they were going to give to the masses, and the tech they were going to release soon. He watched with sparkling eyes as she gestured with every word, animated and clearly in love with what she did.

"And I just went off on a tangent," Felicity said finally, catching his bemused look.

"I liked it," he said with a shrug.

She blushed and focused on her food again.

"I made a mistake not giving you all that when the company was mine," he said.

"Well you do have a misogynistic need to have me under you." Her eyes widened and she laughed in complete horror. "Oh. My. God."

It was Oliver's turn to blush. He didn't drop his gaze at all. "I will try to keep that in mind for the future."

"Please kill me," she whimpered.

His lips finally did what they had been threatening to do for the past hour. They moved upwards and into a full smile. It was a little sad and lost, but it was his and she loved it.

"I'm glad you're doing what you love," he added, giving her an out.

"Thanks," she whispered, still embarrassed.

They managed to get through the rest of the meal without so much as a subtle innuendo on Felicity's part, then they left the shop, Felicity's tablet tucked her arm and Oliver's arm brushing against her free one.

"There's a market down the street," Oliver said. "If you wanted..."

"Yes!" Felicity said, immediately distracted from the feeling of his skin on hers at the thought. She loved the feel of markets, the humanity and the press of people. They were always so full of life and interesting things to see.

He guided them to the market, the sounds of hawkers selling their wares, chattering voices, and people pressed together along the narrow road filling Felicity with delight. She paused briefly as she took in the scene, then she surged forward, ready to throw herself into the fray. Oliver stayed close by her, sometimes pressing his arm against hers, as if to reassure himself that she was still there.

She stopped at what felt like every stall, to take in the wares, the sellers, and the people around her. Her lips were pulled up in a permanent smile when she wasn't looking at something in awe or confusion.

She felt Oliver watching her, but she ignored the emotion it caused in favor of sharing with him her excitement and happiness. She had not been on vacation in four years. Going to Russia had not counted. There had been no sightseeing, though Oliver had definitely done his fair share of relaxing. He had enjoyed that trip; she was going to enjoy this one. She was going to pretend for an hour that they weren't in Bangkok to rescue Heather and avenge two people's deaths. She was going to pretend that Oliver and her had flown to Thailand to enjoy the life, scenery, and relaxing atmosphere. Platonically, of course.

Oliver, for his part, seemed to relax around her as the moments progressed. He smiled when she pointed something out with too much enthusiasm and he explained the things she didn't understand. It was easy; it was fun.

They were in the middle of the shops when a boy, thin and ragged, ran past them. Oliver immediately caught him on the back of his shirt and held him captive. Felicity frowned at him, wondering what he was doing, but Oliver held his hand out the boy expectantly. The boy was chattering, but Oliver looked unmoved. Finally, a wallet appeared out of the boy's clothing and Oliver formed his hand around it. His hand still clutching the fabric of the boy's shirt, he pulled out several bills and held them out to the boy. The boy took the bills, looking stunned. He clutched them to his chest as if they were gems and looked up at Oliver with wide eyes.

Then, as if slapped, the boy spun on his heel and ran off, disappearing into the crowd before Oliver could change his mind and have him arrested. Oliver tucked his wallet back into his pocket and turned to see what Felicity was doing. She stared at him, warmth blossoming in her chest.

She had just glimpsed Oliver Queen, the man. He was making fewer appearances lately - The Arrow taking center stage more often than she liked. Oliver Queen was the person she had fallen in love with, and she had just been reminded why. There was a gentleness - a sweetness, really - that years of hardship, torture, and impossible choices could not erase.

"Are you okay?" Oliver asked.

"I love you."

Felicity's eyes widened as the words escaped her. She hadn't meant to say them. She hadn't meant for them to bridge the barrier of her lips. The thought had been pulsing through her brain so hard and so fervently that her mouth had simply acted without her permission. She took several steps back, panicking.

She spun on her heel without waiting for his reaction and all but ran back to the hotel, hoping he didn't follow her.


	9. Unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angsty. Sorry not sorry. Though this one ends a little ambiguous as far as Oliver and Felicity, it's all set up for the next chapter, so don't freak out. Okay, freak out if you want, but trust me. Or don't.
> 
> Also, Felicity goes cyber bad ass with spectacular results.

On the list of things that she never thought she would do, telling Oliver Queen she loved him in the middle of a market in Bangkok was not even something she had considered writing down. It was inconceivable, ridiculous, and she could not take back the words, no matter how much she wished she could.

It wasn't that she didn't love him. It was that he didn't want her, not really. He wanted the idea of her. He wanted to pine over something he couldn't have. Because if he really wanted her, if he really loved her, he would find another way. He was very good at finding alternative paths that suited his conscience and the new man he had become. No, that wasn't the problem. She simply wasn't worth it to him.

Or maybe her terror at telling him she loved him had her thinking irrationally. It didn't seem to matter. He didn't want to be with her, and she had just complicated the situation times a billion by opening her stupid mouth when she should have just kept it closed.

What on earth had come over her?

Damn everything, everyone, and all the things in between.

She ran back to the hotel, not stopping to see if he was following, and barreled into the hotel, tears welling in her eyes. She went straight to her room and flung the door back, remembering at the last minute that Heather was sleeping. She closed the door with a gentle snap, then leaned against the metal, her hands pressed against her tablet, which was pressed over her heart.

The panic took some time to wear off, then she started cursing herself, overanalyzing every second of their time together, and otherwise feeling like an idiot.

Why the hell could she just not figure out her personal life? What was so difficult about that? She considered it for longer than she would have admitted to anyone. Maybe it was her burden to bear for finally finding a home in Starling, in Diggle, in Roy, Laurel, Palmer Tech, and the Arrow Cave. She couldn't have it all. It wasn't fair to the rest of the world that she have everything she wanted.

The thought did nothing to stem the tide of doubt, heartbreak, and anguish. It just made her realize that she was doomed to be the person put second for the rest of her life.

Heather muttered something about bone density and rolled over with a gentle sigh. Felicity looked at her helplessly, wanting to wake her up so that she could get all the sarcasm, friendship, and logic she could stand. Heather would make her feel better about her slip up. She would know how to get Oliver and Felicity back to a place that was strictly friend territory. But she also really needed to sleep.

As Felicity watched her, she realized she had a different distraction at her fingertips. Heather was still in danger. She needed to get on with making her threats and doing her hacking. She pushed away from the door and slowly crawled into the bed, being careful not to disturb Heather.

Then, she focused on the information she had stolen, the hacking that needed to be accomplished, and anything that had absolutely nothing to do with Oliver Queen.

She fell asleep with her hand poised on her tablet and her mind whirring with data. It was her dreams that betrayed her, however. She kept ending up back on the street, admitting to loving him, only instead of running away, she stayed and he kissed her and vowed that they could be together, that he would fight for them.

She woke to sunshine filtering around the curtains, pressure on her shoulder, and tingling in her hand. She blinked away her grogginess and turned her head to find the source of the tingling. Heather was lying on it, her back pressed firmly against Felicity's side. Her mouth was hanging open and she looked blissfully unconscious. Felicity shifted her weight and tried to pull her hand away. Heather didn't move or react. Felicity tugged harder, miscalculated the strength needed, and ended up on the floor with a thump. Heather gave a happy little snort at the space and stretched out so that she was taking up the entire bed.

Felicity rubbed at her hand painfully and willed her brain to wake up and stop dwelling on the last dream of Oliver kissing her. It took a lot of effort. It was only the ping on her tablet that truly brought her away from her anguish and want. She pulled the screen up and immediately went back to work. She only set her tablet down when she showered. She kept it in front of her as she brushed her teeth, pulled on her clothes, and brought her hair back into a tight ponytail. She even kept her eyes on it as she sent a return text to Ray Palmer as he asked her how much longer she would be on her trip and that he missed her. She didn't have the energy to properly respond, so she told him that she would be back soon. Three texts later, where he was focused only on work and not her, he finally stopped messaging her.

The second time that Felicity tore her eyes away from the screen was when there was a soft knock at the door. Felicity knew the knock. She knew the person responsible for it. She closed her eyes and made a hasty plan to pretend as if her admission had never happened. It was best for everyone, really. She could pretend. She had spent the past three years pretending that she was normal and not in love with him. She could do it for another fifty years if it came down to it. She was strong. She had control.

She opened the door and made him take a step back as she moved over the threshold. She kept her eyes on the tablet, all business and cool efficiency.

"I've managed to track down a couple of names that we could send the threat to, but I really think that Damian Darhk should be our focus. I'm looking for him right now. He's a bit of a ghost, but I'm using what Adeline said about him checking in with email. He's smart enough to use about a billion proxies, but I have the scent now. Shouldn't take me too much longer."

"Felicity..." Oliver tried to interject.

Felicity refused to look at him, keeping her eyes squarely on the tablet, but she could picture his expression: self-loathing, denial, refusal to cave in to what he wanted, anger at himself for letting his emotions get the better of him, pain at having caused her pain. She shoved the image away and cleared her throat pointedly.

"H.I.V.E. was smart enough not to put everything on their servers...seems like there's some blanks to fill in, but I've been searching for Project Infinity. There's very little information. We might have to find out about it another way...I dunno. Where's Diggle? He should probably hear this."

"He's in his room," Oliver said.

"Okay, thanks," she said.

Oliver's hand shot out and grabbed her forearm. His grip was firm but not painful. "Felicity?" he added softly.

Felicity felt a dark weight on her chest. It was threatening to make her hyperventilate. She shook her head at him and finally looked into his eyes. She was surprised by the softness and compassion she found in the depths. The self-loathing was missing. She also saw the not-so-secret love that was consistent torture for her.

"Let's just talk to Diggle," she whispered, pleaded, prayed.

He sighed and released her arm, his hand trailing down until only their fingertips were touching. "Okay," he said.

She exhaled deeply, her eyes closing for a second longer than normal, and she nodded thankfully. She hurried to Diggle's door, not trusting herself to be around Oliver without her brain malfunctioning again, and knocked sharply. He answered immediately, his voice layered with sleep.

When she stepped inside, she was relieved to see that he had gotten some of his color back, but he still looked awful.

"Are you sure you didn't die?" Felicity asked him, reaching out to put a hand on his bicep in concern.

"Reasonably," Diggle said.

"How's Lyla?" Felicity asked slyly.

Diggle groaned, all the answer she needed.

"Keeping secrets from the soon-to-be wife equals bad idea," Felicity said. "Particularly when it comes avenging your brother's murder."

"Lyla and I keep secrets. It's the nature of the work. She just didn't like that I didn't come to her when I needed help. She didn't like that I went up against H.I.V.E. without so much as a phone call."

"Well, Lyla is a badass. I'd let her have my back any day of the week," Felicity said. "She's one of the few people at A.R.G.U.S. that wouldn't stab me in it."

Oliver chuckled in agreement. She ignored him. Instead, she told Diggle what she had found and the steps she was taking to track down Damian Darhk digitally. He listened in silence, his eyes flicking between Oliver's face and hers. When she got done speaking, he nodded and looked at Oliver. It was all the hint Oliver needed. He backed out of the room, leaving Felicity and Diggle alone. Felicity kept her head bent over and her finger tapping on her tablet. She did not like having only her tablet to manage things. It made her fingers itch to be moving. The sooner they could return to Starling and her computers, the better.

At least in Starling Oliver would have an easier time maintaining his typical distance and she could have the distraction of Ray Palmer. Distance was everything with them. Proximity seemed to heighten the magnetism and draw them ever closer. It was dangerous.

"Want to tell me what happened?" Diggle asked.

"Nothing happened," Felicity said.

"You suck at lying."

Felicity turned away from him, feeling a bit panicked. If anyone could get the truth out of her, it was Diggle. He always seemed to know what to say, even if he didn't expect an answer in return.

"He's trying to be better, Felicity," Diggle said. "Our boy is struggling with some major demons right now, but he's trying."

"I know that," Felicity whispered.

"But?" Diggle prompted.

"He'll always be struggling with them, and we'll never be at a perfect point for things to work out, and I will always come second to Oliver Queen's need to hate himself."

"So it's not about the danger?" Diggle asked.

Felicity turned back to him, her glasses perched low on her nose, and looked over them sternly.

"I like protecting the city. I like the work we do. I'm as crazy as you and the others are. No. It's the fact that I can't be with someone who isn't willing to give me their all. I may not be much, but I'm worth fighting for."

Diggle smiled. "Yes, you are."

Felicity smiled back. "Thanks." She fidgeted with the tablet for a second and realized that thinking about it was depressing her again, and distracting her from the necessity of the hunt. "I'd better get back to it."

Oliver was standing directly on the other side of the door. She had the very real suspicion that he had been eavesdropping. He took one step back when she opened the door and looked at her, hands tucked in his pockets, shoulders raised in tension, eyes soft and puppy dog-ish.

She took one look at him, decided that, nope she still wasn't in the mood to talk about her admission, and stepped around him, her eyes back on the tablet.

"Felicity. Stop. Please," Oliver said.

Felicity stopped walking and sighed. She turned to face him, quite bravely, she told herself. "What?" she asked softly.

"Can we please talk about what you said?" he almost begged.

"What's there to say?" she asked back.

"A lot, I think," he replied.

"Not really," she said calmly, though her entire body felt like it was vibrating. She wondered if the vibrating could get so bad she would implode. It would not be a good look.

He looked wounded. "I think there is," he said.

"No. And you know why?" she asked, her anger flaring. "Because no matter what I feel, or what you feel, or what potential there is for us, nothing has changed. You don't want to be with me, and I can't be with someone who doesn't want me one hundred percent."

Oliver took another step towards her, the heat of his body radiating out and touching her like a caress. It was maddening. She wanted to look away - her anger told her to storm off - but, like always, her anger kept her eyes on his, daring him to tell her she was wrong. She was far too stubborn to back down. He didn't look nearly as angry. Instead, he looked conflicted and sad. He opened his mouth to speak, to most likely tell her that she was right, but her tablet dinged. Felicity broke the stare and saw that it had finally dinged for a very good reason. She wanted to smile, but the conversation was weighing on her. She settled for scrolling through the data very quickly.

"Got you!" she said.

"What?" Oliver asked.

"Damian Darhk. I found him. Now all I need to do is level some very real threats his way."

Her fingers were already flying. She worked her way through his firewall and opened a chat box, seeing that he was at his computer from the activity. Strange that a leader of H.I.V.E. would be so into cat videos. She ignored Oliver, who had moved to look over her shoulder at the screen, and focused on what she wanted form Darhk.

 _Knock, knock,_ she typed.

 _Who is this?_ was the immediate response. Even as it was typed, she saw him trying to figure out how she had gotten in and kick her out of his computer. It was actually kind of endearing.

 _Just your friendly, neighborhood blackmailer,_ Felicity typed. _And I would stop trying to kick me out. It won't work._

There was a pause, then Darhk gave up.

_You're good._

Felicity knew he was evil and psychotic, but she preened a bit at that. A compliment was a compliment.

 _What do you want, then?_ he asked.

_I broke into your system and downloaded all sorts of naughty things. I want a simple exchange._

_What?_ He was typing faster, clearly agitated.

_I want my friend to be left alone. For your cooperation, I won't release your information to anyone who's curious about H.I.V.E._

"Felicity?" a voice called from further down the hall.

Felicity glanced up, saw a sleepy Heather, bed-head and all, standing at the door to their room. She was wearing a frown.

"What's up?" Heather added.

"I'm threatening someone...or blackmailing, really. It's more of a threat, I think. Extortion, maybe?" Felicity said.

"Felicity," Oliver said to get her to focus.

"Is it Damian Darhk?" Heather asked.

"Yeah," Felicity said.

"You should have come get me," Heather said.

"I didn't think..." Felicity bit her lip uncertainly.

"It's okay," Heather said quickly. "Just next time I get abducted and you have to threaten someone for me, keep me in the loop when the actual threatening goes down."

"Noted," Felicity said.

A new response was forming on her tablet. _Who is your friend?_

Heather moved to her other shoulder as the door behind them creaked open and Diggle joined them. Felicity was surrounded. She had never felt safer. She looked at Heather for conformation that she could give Damian her name. She hesitated, looking uncertain, then nodded curtly.

_Heather Fox._

_Ah. You're the reason she was able to escape._

_Do we have a deal?_ Felicity asked, sensing he was fishing for information.

_What's to keep you from releasing that information?_

_My friend's life. I know you'll retaliate if I release it. And, let me be clear, if she so much as gets a hangnail, I will destroy you._

Heather started laughing. "A hangnail?"

"I'm trying to be scary," Felicity said with a pout.

"I'm scared," Diggle said, one eyebrow arched in surprise.

"You're very good at threatening," Oliver said in little more than a whisper.

"It's just so dramatic of you," Heather said. "I like it."

"Thanks," Felicity said.

 _There's only one problem,_ Darhk replied.

Felicity rolled her eyes, knowing he was being mysterious so that she had to ask.

_What?_

_My tech is better than your tech._

Felicity watched in horror as the firewalls around the foundry's computers were punctured and everything she had downloaded disappeared with the release of a particularly nasty virus.

"Oh, no you didn't!" Felicity said. "You big, fat, evil cheater!"

"What?" Oliver demanded.

"He just destroyed the foundry servers. I don't know how he got in, but he erased all the information I was mining through on H.I.V.E." She set her expression and narrowed her eyes defensively. "He's playing cyber warfare, only he doesn't know he's playing with the best."

 _I really hope you don't think that I didn't make back ups of the information I stole,_ Felicity typed. _I'm not an amateur. Oh, and for misbehaving, I'm gonna go ahead and show you what I am capable without your fancy tech._

She quickly accessed the back door she had managed to put in place on H.I.V.E.'s network, because she was brilliant, thank you very much, and unloaded the nuclear bomb of data corruption on it. The viruses she had sent them the previous day were nothing compared to what she had just unloaded. It was permanent destruction. It was the apocalypse.

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. She realized that Darhk most likely had another computer he was accessing. She wondered how she had missed it. She tried to find another line that was connected to his network, but nothing came up. Weird.

"You are tricky...or good. Or both," Felicity murmured.

"What's he doing?" Oliver asked tensely.

"He has to be manipulating things somehow, but it's not with the computer he's on. Only there's nothing else on his network. Maybe he has someone else doing the hacking for him. I don't know. I'm trying to trace the hack into the foundry now."

She was afraid to pull out the hard drive in case he tracked down the tablet she was on and fried the data. She needed to make more copies of it for safe keeping. But she wanted to open it and see if there were more secret bases hidden around the word. She wanted to prove to Darhk that she had the power to make his life very miserable.

 _Your friend is safe,_ Darhk finally typed. _No one will harm her or involve her in H.I.V.E. business again._

Felicity shot Heather a relieved smile. Another response was forming. It caught Felicity by surprise.

 _Was it worth it?_ Darhk added.

 _Was what worth it?_ Felicity typed back, her curiosity getting the better of her.

 _Was your friend's life worth catching my attention?_ he asked.

_H.I.V.E. now knows about you. We are the shadow you can't see coming. And we have your name...The infamous Felicity Smoak._

Felicity's heart thundered in her chest and sweat that had nothing to do with the heat pooled at the base of her spine. She felt like she was seconds away from taking off in a sprint, only there was nowhere to run. She did her best to keep her fear out of her face, but she knew the others sensed it. Oliver's hand moved to her arm, giving her a gentle squeeze. She hated how much steel the simple gesture put into her spine.

 _I guess we're on equal footing then,_ Felicity typed.

She cut the line before Darhk could say anything else and held the tablet to her chest in an attempt to slow her thundering heartbeat.

"Are you okay?" Oliver asked.

"I'm fine," Felicity said stiffly, the tension of their previous conversation creeping back in now that the threat of Darhk was over. She turned away from the group and said over her shoulder, "I guess we should probably pack and head home, huh? If we're going to track Darhk down and destroy him, I need my babies to be well..."

Heather skipped several times to catch up to her, leaving Diggle and Oliver behind them. "That simple?"

"That simple," Felicity said. "And I really, _really_ , need to sleep in my own bed."

"I know someone else's bed you could probably sleep in if the awe in his face is anything to go on," Heather said, looking over her shoulder with a smile.

"Diggle's engaged to be married, Heather," Felicity teased.

"Ha, ha," Heather said dryly. "But seriously...the way he's looking at you is not the way he was looking at you before. It's like you're suddenly attainable. What happened?"

Felicity made sure the door was closed before she made her admission.

"I maybe blurted out the fact that I love him," she said.

"Oh..." Heather said. Her eyes widened. "Oh!"

"Yeah," Felicity agreed.

"What did he say in return?" Heather asked.

"I ran away..." Felicity admitted.

"Okay, but today he obviously said something," Heather said.

"I wouldn't let him talk about it," she added, a blush forming in her face.

"Huh," Heather said.

Felicity saw her expression. "Just say what you want to say," Felicity said.

"So you think you know what he's going to say, you've made your mind up, and won't let him talk about it. I get it. It's a self-defense thing. If he doesn't say what you think he's going to say, then it won't hurt."

"You make it sound ridiculous," Felicity said.

"Isn't it?" Heather asked. "I mean, I clearly love ridiculous things, so who am I to complain, but not giving him the benefit of the doubt...that's a bit odd...and not the good kind of odd. The kind of odd that leaves you on skid row covered in baby oil, feathers, and regret."

Felicity laughed. She sobered quickly. Heather had a point. she hadn't given Oliver the chance to speak. It was because she was afraid. She was afraid of another maybe, another, "I can't be with you." She was afraid he said yes and it didn't turn out to be what she had fantasized it being.

She heard the door swing shut and looked up to see that Heather had gone into the bathroom. A second later, the water started running. Felicity went around the room, collecting the things that had escaped her bag, her thoughts spiraling.

She realized that no matter how hard she wanted to let him go, how desperate she was to live a life that didn't focus on him and only him, she was still hung up on him. She didn't know how to let him go. She didn't know what to do. She was also certain that she would have to allow him another chance to tell her it wouldn't work out. She would give him that conversation, because she was an adult and adults had to hear things that hurt even when they didn't want to. She realized she had been hearing things that hurt from the time she was five years old. So, maybe it was a human thing. Either way, she would have to hear another painful goodbye.

Her next thought as she tossed the last dress in her luggage was that Damian Darhk knew her name. He was clearly skilled in hacking, was scary powerful, and she knew without a second's doubt that she had not heard the last of him. He would come for her the same way she wanted to find him and give Diggle and Heather absolution and peace. It would be a battle to end all battles. It would not end peacefully.

But for her friends, she would do anything.

She went into the hall to give Heather space and collect her thoughts and sat down on the ground, liking that the hall was deserted. She was not left alone for long. She didn't hear him - she never did - but she felt him slide down the wall and sit next to her. She didn't look at him and he didn't look at her. The feeling that she needed to let him say what he wanted was not as pressing as the current fear pulsing through her.

"What do you need?" he asked softly.

She felt tears glisten in her eyes at the question. It was exactly what she needed to hear from him. It made her feel like he understood her.

"Right now...I just need someone to hold my hand and say nothing so I can freak out without having to explain myself," she said.

Oliver didn't hesitate. He opened his palm and held it out to her. She did hesitate, however, knowing full well the dangers of touching him so intimately. Then, because she was an idiot, she threaded her fingers around his. He brought their joined hands to his leg and took a deep breath, as if releasing a thousand memories all at once. His hold was tight and firm, but not restrictive. She could pull away at any time, but she also felt protected and warm. She wanted to lean against him, to feed off his calm energy and know that no matter what, they would be okay - she would be okay. She slid two inches closer, not able to stop herself in time.

They sat like that for a while, the unsaid things pressing against them both, until Diggle's door opened and he caught their attention. He didn't point out their joined hands - he barely even looked at them. He held his phone in one hand and his eyes were worried.

"Digg?" Felicity questioned.

"Adeline Kane...she escaped."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking 10 chapters might be all. And it will be glorious.


	10. Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. The weather has finally been nice here, so I did what any respectable lady would do: I watched Netflix and ate cake.
> 
> This is the last chapter - Oliver and Felicity work some things out. Some words are said, descriptions of things happen. It's awesome.

"Wait. What?" Felicity demanded, springing to her feet and loosening her grip on Oliver's hand. He let the hand slid out without saying anything, his eyes locked on Diggle.

"Lyla just called," Diggle said. "She sent me this."

Felicity took the phone away from him as a video started to play. The SUV Adeline had been taken away in was attacked by a group of five, armed with assault rifles and wearing baklavas. The attackers were precise, fierce, and had Adeline's guards lying in their own blood in the matter of forty-five seconds. Adeline was pulled out of the SUV by the attackers and placed into a sleek, black car. The car peeled away from the SUV and disappeared down the street. The video cut off.

Felicity started to turn away, to find her tablet and track Adeline, but Diggle stopped her with what he said next.

"There are only a few people who knew about A.R.G.U.S. picking Adeline up. Us and A.R.G.U.S.," Diggle pointed out.

"It wasn't Heather, if that's what you're saying," Felicity said.

"That's not what I'm suggesting," Diggle said, his eyes moving to Oliver. Oliver crossed his arms and his thoughts turned inwards. Finally, he looked up, his eyes betraying his fear. He nodded at Diggle, and Felicity looked between them, growing more irritated by the second.

"Care to share with the class?" she asked impatiently.

"He's suggesting that someone in A.R.G.U.S. works for H.I.V.E. They have a traitor," Oliver said.

"Oh. Frack," she provided helpfully.

"Does Lyla know?" Oliver asked.

Diggle nodded. "She's taking it to Amanda Waller."

"No. Don't," Oliver said swiftly.

"Why?" Diggle asked.

"You have no idea who is working for them, how far it goes, or what's at stake. Lyla needs to be cautious. She can't go around making accusations. We have to be more careful than that. She shouldn't take the risk."

Felicity pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. She closed her eyes. "So that means we have to hide from A.R.G.U.S. and H.I.V.E. That makes my head hurt."

"We won't hide from ARGUS. We're just going to be cautious until we know more," Oliver said.

"Still makes my head hurt," Felicity said into her palm.

"Any progress on Darhk?" Diggle asked hopefully.

Felicity lowered her hand and looked at him sympathetically. She didn't know what he was going through. She didn't have any siblings, and if she did, they wouldn't have become assassins, then betrayed the assassin group they worked for and gotten killed by a sniper with a poison-laced bullet. They probably would have been nerds like her, trapped behind a desk - unless a vigilante turned superhero needed their very impressive brains.

She could sympathize, though. She knew how it would feel if someone hurt Oliver, Diggle, Roy, or Laurel. He had to be aching to get Darhk off the streets and behind bars. She would not allow for the fact that Diggle would do anything less than the proper thing. And now, Adeline had escaped. Kane and Darhk working together against them sounded fiercely scary. Adeline also knew what Felicity looked like - what all of them looked like. They would find them, and there would be a fight to end all fights.

The tension settled into tight knots in her stomach.

"No, not yet," Felicity said. "But I promise you that I'm not going to stop looking for him. I'll go look for Adeline right now. Maybe she'll lead us to him."

"We're still leaving," Oliver said.

"But Adeline..." Felicity tried to argue.

"We accomplished everything we needed to accomplish here. Heather is safe and under the protection of your threat. We know who killed Andy and Rose. So now we go to where we are strongest and we rally," Oliver said.

"Fine," Felicity huffed, seeing the logic.

"Lyla sent the A.R.G.U.S. jet to pick us up," Diggle added, looking at his phone, clearly wanting to call her and tell her not to say anything to Amanda. "It should be here in twenty minutes."

"It'll take us that long to get across town," Felicity said.

"Time to go," Oliver agreed.

Diggle turned away, already lifting his phone to his ear. Felicity hesitated, her eyes on Oliver's face. She felt as if they would never have an honest conversation the way they needed to if they were in Starling. He would be reminded of all the reasons 'no' was a good alternative to 'yes,' and she would consequently want to punch him in the face. Not that she was a violent person by nature, but his 'no face' tended to do that to her. There was also not enough time to have a real conversation. They had a plane to catch.

She sighed and went to her room, feeling his eyes on her as she walked away.

Before she could wrap her head around the fact that they were leaving - sans serious conversation - with Damian Darhk and Adeline Kane still on the loose, they were piled into a taxi, Heather on one side, Oliver on the other. Diggle rode up front, holding his shoulder tentatively.

They walked through the airport in silence, all of them too tired to even pretend to find the effort to talk. Even Heather didn't have her typical observations to make. She simply trailed along at Felicity's side, her arm latched around Felicity's as her feet dragged on the floor.

The jet that was waiting for them was the complete opposite of the one that had taken them to Thailand. It was like Oliver's old one, maybe even a little nicer. Felicity smiled happily at the sight. Her smile still in place, she helped Diggle get comfortable and offered to fetch him anything he might need for the flight. He had to tell her three times he was fine before she finally sat down.

She buckled in, and ten minutes later, they were taxing down the runway. She looked out of her window incuriously as they moved, and saw a black SUV. She had a moment of panic, thinking it was Adeline, then the window rolled down and she saw the old woman that had given them their welcome to Thailand. She had come to see them off. Felicity watched, curiosity burning in her chest, as the woman's face faded from few. Then, they were flying.

She leaned back and sighed heavily, knowing she still had a lot of work to do before she could truly feel secure about the H.I.V.E. situation, if she would ever feel safe again.

The flight was long. There was no way for it to be otherwise, despite A.R.G.U.S.'s top of the line, fancy-pants airplane. She got up to stretch her legs twice and seriously contemplated doing some yoga just to relieve the pain in her back. Heather fell asleep during hour four; Diggle followed soon after. Felicity thought about doing the same, but couldn't get her mind to stop whirling. It went a dozen different ways, all of the thoughts equally as stressful as the one that preceded it.

She had set up the thumb drive to dump the data in a couple of backup servers around the world, piggybacking some satellites and federal databases, and encrypting the programs to the point that no one would know that they were there. It would make it easier to offload the information when the time came to strike out at H.I.V.E. Which meant that she had to let the program run and couldn't use her tablet.

It meant she was bored on top of stressed. And tense. She was definitely tense. She was the only person awake besides Oliver. His eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't sleeping. She figured he was trying to get his thoughts in order, figure out a plan of attack, and get back into his Arrow headspace so that the transformation was not so jarring when he got home.

She got up again and went to the rear of the plane, not wanting to disturb the others with her pacing, and contemplated using her phone to read a book. When had she had the time to sit down and just read something? About five years ago? For a life so full, she didn't have time for many hobbies. She vowed to herself that she would find the time for a hobby, when she had the time to find the time.

She chuckled a little at the thought, and then jumped when she turned around to find Oliver in her path.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied shyly, eyes moving to the ground in embarrassment.

"We'll get them," he assured her, attributing her pacing to Darhk and Kane.

"I know. We always do," she said.

There was an awkward pause. His eyebrows lifted up slightly as he searched for what he wanted to say.

"I realize I was unfair to you," Felicity said.

He stilled, his eyebrows creasing. "About what?"

"You have a right to speak up about what I said...before. Even if I don't like what you have to say, I still owe you the courtesy of letting you say it. I'm sorry, and you can say whatever you want to say now, though I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to say...I have heard it before, after all."

She clamped her lips together as she realized she wasn't actually giving him the chance to speak. She looked up at him, waiting to see if he took the olive branch she had offered to him. He didn't speak for a while, but she knew that it was because he was trying to get his thoughts in order. He wasn't running away.

"Why did you say it now?" he asked her softly.

"It just slipped out," she admitted. "But it's not a recent thing, if that's what you're asking."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Pick a reason. There are plenty," she said, feeling a bit defensive. He didn't have the right to ask that question when he had shut her down so hard and so quick?

"You're right. I didn't mean to ask that...It's just that I'm..."

"I know," Felicity said sadly. "It's weird."

"It's not weird...it's different," he said.

Felicity shrugged, wishing he would just get to the part where he said that he hadn't changed his mind.

"I can see you thinking," Oliver said.

"Hmm?" Felicity asked absently.

"I can see you wanting me to give you a clean and clear refusal, fast and quick so that it doesn't hurt so much."

How on earth had he seen that on her face? When had he gotten so good at reading her? It was probably somewhere between, "Hi, I'm Oliver Queen," and right now, she thought wryly.

They hit a patch of turbulence and Felicity grabbed the wall for support. Oliver pulled her toward the nearest chairs, well away from Diggle and Heather. More turbulence shook the plane, but Felicity hardly noticed. She turned to look at Oliver, wondering why he looked more nervous than she had ever seen him look before. Was it because he was afraid that another no would drive her away from him completely?

"Listen, Oliver, I get it. I do. I'm not going to leave the team just because I'm not wanted in that way. I value what we do. I like it. We can figure a way around it, okay?"

"That's not..." He sighed, clearly growing frustrated when the words wouldn't come to him.

"Would you like to sound it out?" she teased him, hoping it would lighten the mood.

He shot her an exasperated look. She closed her mouth again, pressing her lips together firmly.

"I realized somewhere in the past two days that I was wrong," he said.

"Wrong?" she questioned.

"About what I said," he said. "Before."

She could feel her pulse picking up speed and her brain was turning all sorts of fuzzy. It felt a bit like she was about to get in a fight with him, but it was opposite, because if he meant what he really meant and wasn't just messing with her...

"Could you elaborate?" She paused. "By a lot."

His eyes flicked over to Heather and Diggle. He clearly did not want to have an in-depth conversation with them while they had potential witnesses to the emotion.

"I was wondering if I could sit down and talk to you about this when we weren't on a plane?" he asked softly.

"I would like that," she admitted.

He smiled, and that was the moment the sun decided to break through the clouds and land directly on them. It made her think that the sun knew what was up. It was wise to the situation and respected the fact that Oliver was potentially removing his head from his sphincter. She leaned back in her chair at the sight and smiled to herself, wondering, hoping, thinking that they had just taken a single step forward. She was terrified he would change his mind between now and their next conversation, but she refused to let that little demon of a thought depress her. Oliver admitting to being wrong was a huge step, and she would not deny its relevancy.

The tension between them had relaxed significantly with the promise of a conversation. They still had some things to work out, and the threat of H.I.V.E. was a thickly hanging cobweb, but she felt better, more at ease. She relaxed into her seat, feeling her body unwind from a long couple of days.

"How much does Heather know?" Oliver whispered at her. "About us...and me."

Felicity shrugged. "Nothing."

"But she hasn't asked any questions about how we could do what we did or freaked out about anything..." he pointed out.

"That's Heather for you," she said. "If she wants to know, she'll find out. Otherwise, she honestly doesn't care, and she never sticks her nose into things that aren't her business. She's cool like that."

"But..."

"It's fine," Felicity assured him. "I promise. Even if she does figure it out, she won't tell anyone."

"Okay," he said.

She closed her eyes and, after a moment's pause, Oliver wrapped his arm around her shoulder. The touch was uncertain and she sensed him fighting the urge to put as much distance between them and keep her safe. It took all of his stubbornness for him to be selfish. At least he was finally applying it in a way she liked. She sighed happily into his shoulder and let the peace of a perfect moment take over.

The rest of flight was quiet. Felicity didn't pace as she had at the beginning of it. She stayed wrapped up under Oliver's arm for as long as their bodies would allow, then made lunch from the food stored in the mini-fridge. Diggle and Heather woke up with the smell of food, and they all ate together, doing their best to push the drama of the past few days out for the duration of the meal. Heather got along well with Diggle, trading quips and teasing jibes, many of them pointed at Oliver and Felicity.

At one point, a bout of turbulence had Oliver spilling his drink. It was just enough to force him to change shirts. Heather watched as he disappeared into the back, his shirt lifting over his head, her eyes bright as she caught sight of his muscles.

"Holy shit," Heather murmured to Felicity.

Felicity had followed Oliver's progress as well. "I know. Trust me, I know. The first time I saw Oliver working out shirtless I thanked Jesus...and I'm Jewish."

Heather laughed, and Diggle busied himself with his phone, doing everything in his power to pretend as if he hadn't heard Felicity's comment.

When the plane touched down in Starling, Felicity was equal parts relieved and worried. She knew that the real work would begin soon. It would be a hell of a fight.

"Roy keeps texting me," Diggle said as he and Felicity walked behind Oliver and Heather. Heather was chatting with Oliver. He kept throwing perplexed looks over his shoulder at Felicity. Felicity just smiled and shrugged her shoulders whenever he did.

"Oh yeah?" she asked.

"He's freaking out because the computers won't turn on. He thinks it's his fault...something about playing Solitaire on one at the same time they went dark."

"On my babies?" Felicity demanded.

"What should I tell him?" Diggle asked.

"Let him sweat a little," Felicity decided.

Diggle's grin was malicious. He nodded in agreement and tucked his phone into his pocket. He gestured with his chin at Oliver. "The tension seems a little less thick," he started tentatively.

"I noticed that," Felicity said with a smile.

He took in her soft smile and sparkling eyes. "Good." Then he promptly let the subject drop.

 

When Felicity got back to her apartment, she first thought of going into work. She knew the projects on her desk had only grown with her mini-vacation. She was so far behind, she was certain she had time traveled to last week. Then she thought about the conversation she needed to have with Ray, to send their weird limbo status back into a firm work status. It made her head hurt. Going into work could wait until the morning. She would catch up as much as she could from her apartment, set her searches for Kane and Darhk, and take the day to herself.

She didn't get far in her search for Kane and Darhk, but what she pulled off the hard drive was enough to make her afraid for Lyla. There weren't specifics into how far the infiltration into A.R.G.U.S. really went, but there was enough to suggest that it would be no simple purge. They had to be twice as cautious than normal, which was just as exhausting to think about as talking to Ray.

Though she stayed busy, her heart buzzed with the fact that Oliver Queen had almost admitted to wanting to try with her. The way he had held her on the plane, the look in his eyes as he had stared into hers, the fact that he didn't seem to be running away all added up to the fact that maybe she could have it all, the world be damned.

 

There wasn't much time to talk over the next week. When she wasn't at Palmer Tech, playing catch up and otherwise running the world, she was in the foundry, researching bad guys for the superheroes she knew to punch, tracking Kane and Darhk, and trying to unravel the mystery of H.I.V.E. She spent her free time going through their files and checking up on Heather, who seemed upset that Darhk wasn't any closer, but content to accept Felicity's help and do what she could on her end to track him down.

It was a Wednesday when Oliver finally came to her. They had shared plenty of loaded looks, their personal space had returned to non-existent, and he kept touching her - on the shoulder, on the arm, getting closer than necessary when looking at the computers. It was joy and hell, all wrapped up into an Oliver-shaped package.

When he showed up at her apartment, she was on her couch, her face smushed into the cushion as a show played on her television. A bowl of Skittles sat on the floor by her. Every ten seconds, she would reach down and grab a handful, before popping them into her mouth and chewing slowly. Her head only moved so far as to grant her better access to the candy. It was the most she could manage. She was exhausted. She was certain her body would only move in the likelihood of a tsunami - and that was only because the wave would whoosh her right off the sofa. Or maybe if George Clooney knocked on her door. She wasn't an idiot.

Her show switched to one she didn't want to watch. She thought about changing the channel, even as her eyelids fluttered sleepily, but the remote was by the TV, a good five feet away. Why was the remote by the TV? Why couldn't it be by her? Stupid remote.

Her eyes had slid shut when she heard a light rapping on her door.

"If you're not George Clooney, go away!" she called back sleepily.

"It's Oliver."

It took her a full twenty seconds to process that strange announcement. Oliver was at her apartment at ten o'clock at night. Weird.

"Oh, you'll do, I guess," she said, and she heard him chuckle. She groaned at having to move, then rolled off the sofa and shuffled over to the door. She opened it and blinked up at him owlishly.

"Were you sleeping?" Oliver asked, his face flooding with concern.

"Nearly," Felicity said. "What's wrong? Is Digg okay? Did you get a lead on Darhk? Why didn't you call me? I had my phone." She looked over her shoulder, looking to make sure she wasn't lying. Her phone was on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. She wasn't entirely certain she would have answered had he called. She didn't know if she would have found it in her to get up.

"He's fine, and no. I thought maybe we could have our talk, but you're tired and..."

Felicity held up her hand to stop him. "Come in," she ordered him in a way that told him no excuses would be made to the contrary. He ducked his head and nodded seriously. She turned away without looking back and plopped back down on the sofa. She glared at the remote, wondering how she had forgotten to pick it up again. It was like it was taunting her. She pointed at it as Oliver followed her and he took the hint. He handed it to her with a small smile and she turned the TV off. She set the remote next to her bowl of Skittles.

"Hey," Oliver said.

"Hey," she replied, smiling slightly at the warmth in his voice.

"Long day?" he asked.

"Long week," she said. "Who knew that working three jobs could be so time consuming? They should have sent me a memo."

"They?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah, them," she agreed seriously.

"Okay," he said with a puff of air she took to be a laugh.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She waited for him to say something she could respond to. She realized then that he didn't know where to begin. The silence was loaded with his uncertainty. He was at a point he had been at before in his life - starting a relationship, but he had never been at that point with her. They were both afraid of what it would mean. They were both aware somewhere in the back of their minds that this time would be different for both of them.

"I thought I needed a long conversation about this, but I don't. Just boil it down to a sentence for me," Felicity said with a smile as she sensed him trying to get his thoughts in order. "Bonus for ten words or less."

There was another pause. This one did not feel as uncertain. She felt him figuring out the best way to get his thoughts across to her.

"I want you," he said, his voice soft, firm, unyielding, and full of love.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head, searching for the truth and finding it in his eyes. He meant what he said. It was strange how simple it was. All this time and it took just three words to set them free.

"I want you, too," she said, reaching over and taking his hand.

His eyes lit up and he moved closer to her, still tentative but willing to take that step he had been avoiding for the better part of five months.

"It's going to be messy," he said.

"I know," she said.

"I don't think I'm worthy of you, which might make me irrational sometimes. I'm stubborn..."

"So am I," Felicity pointed out.

"I won't always do the right thing, not right away," he said.

"I have abandonment issues, which might make me defensive," she said.

"I might try to push you away," he said. "Because I'm scared of seeing you end up like everyone else I've ever loved."

"I might get really mad at you, but I'll always care about you," she added.

"There will be times when I don't communicate with you or I might shut down entirely."

"There will be times when I do the same," she said.

He smiled at the way she was meeting him confession for confession and the tension drained out of him. "Okay," he said.

"Glad we got that sorted out," she said, putting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes again.

His arms slid around her and he held her tightly. She was really tired, but she knew one thing. She had figured out the third and final thing that could get her to move. She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. Her right hand came up to caress his cheek. She rubbed her thumb gently under his eye and tried to show him with her eyes how much she wanted to take the leap with him. It would be dangerous, at times stupid, risky, and difficult, but it was worth it. For him.

She moved forward slightly, giving him time to process what she wanted. He knew in a heartbeat. He had spent too long reading her not to know. He met her halfway, his lips pressing against hers.

Her first thought as their lips met was, "Finally!" Her second thought was, "Yay!" Her third thought fritzed out completely as his lips began to move against hers.

Their last kiss had been fraught with so much emotional baggage that she had been desperate to enjoy it, which had made her not enjoy it at all. She had known it was an end. This kiss was soft, warm, and more than a beginning. It was a promise of partnership. It was a promise of unending love, no matter if they stayed a couple or not.

His hands moved to her shoulder blades, to pull her closer, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers threading around the hair at the back of his head. He pulled away first, his forehead landing on hers. She breathed deeply, hoping her thoughts stopped making sounds that reminded her of a microwave soon. She really needed her brain.

"Good talk," Felicity finally said.

She felt the rumble in his chest as he silently laughed. She smiled, her eyes still closed, and continued to rake her hands through his hair. She was contemplating all the ways in which she had daydreamed about this moment. None of them had included her feeling so tired and strangely wired at the same time. They had not included it being so easy to take that final step. After their months - years, really - of struggling the final step had been as easy as falling.

"I think you need to go to bed," Oliver said, pulling far enough away to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"I like the way you think," she said, opening her eyes.

The glitter of amusement in his eyes was matched by sudden desire. She smirked at him, and then felt the exhaustion settle back in. She put her head against his shoulder again and groaned, hating that he was right. She really did need to go to bed.

He shifted purposefully and pulled her into his arms. She laughed at him and rolled her eyes. "I can walk," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed, his hold on her tightening.

She sighed, but didn't fight him on it. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his chest happily. He took her to her room, flicked her light on with his elbow, and gently set her on the bed. He pulled the covers out of the way and helped her slide under them. He started to pull them over her when she realized that she didn't want him to go away. She had only just gotten him back.

"Stay," she said. She had meant it as a command. It came out as a plea.

He hesitated - it was hesitation that would not go away easily despite his desire to try with them. She knew he did not change his mind easily. It was always a hard-won battle when he did. It would take time for him to realize that he could have her fully. She would just have to keep proving to him that staying was the better choice, and what better way than a giant snuggle in her comfortable bed after a kiss that had changed everything for them? It sounded perfectly reasonable to her.

Oliver didn't answer her plea. He simply toed off his shoes, pulled off his shirt, which made her eyes widen slightly, and slid under the covers with her after turning off the light.

"You don't have to sleep in your pants, either," she murmured drowsily as he tentatively wrapped his arms around her. He chuckled and nuzzled her neck playfully. She wanted to say something else - flirt with him or mention how happy naked torso Oliver made her - but she really was sleepy.

She fell asleep with his warmth pressing against her and his steady breathing in her ear.

She awoke to a crick in her neck. She blinked groggily and saw that she had been pushed into the tiniest of corners by Oliver. Her neck was pressed against the headboard and the rest of her body was in a tight ball. Oliver was at a diagonal on the bed, his face peaceful in sleep. She wiped at her mouth, where her drool had leaked over in the night, and realized that every romance movie she had ever watched was a complete and utter lie. Sharing a bed with a hot guy did not mean waking up to him holding her just right, his breathing in sync with hers. It meant waking up to a complete and total bed hog, drool, and frizzy hair the size of Texas.

She grumbled about that for a second before her brain caught up to her complaints. She was complaining about Oliver Queen, the man she had been in love with for longer than she would admit to anyone except for him, was in her bed. Sleeping. Looking perfectly at peace. The neck pain was seventy percent worth it. The other thirty percent she would find a way to take out on him later.

When she moved, he moved, his eyes flying open. She saw the split second of darkness in his eyes, where he was defensive and ready for a fight, then his eyes landed on hers. The ice thawed and warmth replaced it.

She pouted at him playfully. "Bed hog."

"Really?" he asked, looking bewildered and absolutely cute because of it.

She rubbed at her neck and sat up, surprised at how rested she felt despite the pain. She had actually gotten a full night's rest. It was not unusual for her to wake up in the middle of the night, wired and tense because of nightmares, working on one of her personal electronic projects until exhaustion took over again. Even if he was a bed hog, he had helped her sleep.

So maybe the pain was eighty percent worth it.

His hand moved to rub at her neck. She groaned, immediately blushed, then closed her eyes in embarrassment. He didn't seem to notice. He urged her to turn so that he had better access to her neck and started massaging it in earnest, his large hands gentle and warm. She didn't know what he was trying to do to her - other than massage her - but she knew he was pouring water onto a grease fire.

"Better?" he asked after a couple of minutes.

She nodded minutely, thankful that he couldn't hear the turn her thoughts had taken. No one could blame her, really. She had a shirtless, sleepy Oliver massaging her neck in her bed. It was only civilized that she think of what other activities they could be doing in her bed. She was not a wild animal.

"What was that?" Oliver asked gruffly.

She didn't know if it was the touch or lingering sleepiness that had his voice so deep. She didn't know how much of her thoughts had leaked out. She blushed, knowing he would feel the heat of it, and shook her head.

"That feels nice," she tried to cover up.

"Mmmhmm," he said.

A second later, she was on her back - she couldn't remember how it happened but she was very happy about it - and Oliver was perched over her. He didn't hesitate this time. The desire had finally won out. He leaned forward and captured her lips with his.

Even with morning breath, hair that needed taming, and a grumbling stomach, she felt sexy. It had everything to do with the way Oliver looked at her when he pulled back long enough to help her take off her shirt. No one had ever looked at her like that before - like she was worth treasuring, worth fighting for, worth being an equal for. She liked it very much. She pulled him back to her, willing to prove to him that she felt the same way.

Several times.

 

"You had sex," was the first words out of Heather's mouth when they met for lunch that day.

Felicity blinked several times in surprise. "What?"

Heather sat down opposite her, hanging her purse off the chair with a smug smile. "Sex. You had it."

"How...?" Felicity didn't think she was transparent. She was certain she wasn't. So how on earth had Heather noticed that?

"I have a great sex-dar," Heather said.

"You probably shouldn't say that out loud," Felicity said.

"Please tell me it was with Oliver Queen," Heather said.

"Could we not talk about my sex life over lunch?" Felicity asked with a blush, glancing around at the other tables to be sure no one was listening.

"I'll take that as confirmation," Heather said. She paused and looked at the menu for a second, her eyes lighting up at the food choices in front of her. "Oh! Chocolate cake. I've had a hankering."

"A hankering?" Felicity teased Heather for the word choice.

"Total hankering," Heather said.

"You can't have chocolate cake for lunch," Felicity said.

"If I'm paying for it, I can," Heather said.

Felicity laughed.

"So...details on the sex," Heather said.

"Nope," Felicity said.

"Details surrounding the sex, then?" Heather asked.

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Did you two at least figure out that you want to be together and love each other and have tiny little humans you can learn to hate as they learn to talk?" Heather asked.

"Maybe the first two," Felicity said.

Heather reached across the table, her teasing instantly replaced with real joy. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks," Felicity said.

They talked about work and Heather's latest boy-toy, someone she had picked up to blow off steam from getting kidnapped and almost dying several times. Then, the conversation turned inevitably to Darhk. Felicity had to admit to having no new information for her friend. She was still mining through the information, but she was certain that most of it pertaining to H.I.V.E.'s safe houses, bases, and secret hideouts was already obsolete. H.I.V.E. was also certain to distance themselves from missions that were mentioned in the data she had stolen. But they still had quite a lot to go on. She had given Lyla several names of possible traitors in A.R.G.U.S., but Lyla was playing it safe. Felicity trusted that Lyla knew what she was doing, but she still worried.

"I have a feeling Darhk will come to me eventually," Felicity admitted in a small voice.

"Because of his threat?" Heather asked.

"Because I won," Felicity said. "This round, at least. He doesn't seem like the type of person to like losing. And Adeline Kane is definitely going to want payback for kidnapping her and irritating her in general."

"So we should both watch our asses," Heather said.

"I'll watch yours if you watch mine," Felicity said.

Heather smiled and twirled her fork expectantly as the waiter set her chocolate cake in front of her. "Deal," she said.

Felicity nodded seriously and promptly stole a piece of the cake off Heather's plate.

 

The world didn't crumble or shift with her change of status from awkward to in a relationship with Oliver. The only thing that was different from her normal routine was that when she arrived at the foundry Oliver met her at her car with a kiss that suggested he had missed her. It was intense, fierce, and needy. She was breathing deeply by the time he pulled away, his hand threaded through her hair, his other one at her waist. She had only time to put her hands on his chest before the kiss had sucker-punched her thoughts.

"Hey," she greeted him after a moment.

"Hey," he replied.

She wrapped her hand around his, a smile appearing on her face at the knowledge that she could touch him whenever she wanted to now. "Let's go catch some bad guys."

He nodded and, together, their eyes full of love, they walked into the foundry, prepared for whatever came their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy! I plan on making this series into a three-parter, with the third part dealing with the final H.I.V.E. business, delving more into Diggle's stuff and Oliver and Felicity working things out as a couple and being all BAMF and shit. I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I promise to work really hard to think about writing it. : ) 
> 
> Thanks again!


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